Above and beyond
by marshymellowmonster
Summary: Apologies for the very stupid title, it's my first fic. When a simulant happens, the gang are reduced to three, at least temporarily. but the simulant incident turns out to be only the start of their troubles, can they get back together again. now featuring added evil! Ace. well, not really Ace but someone pretending to be him. Please read and review. please pretty please!
1. its the end of the world

_A/n well here it is, my first fanfic. Some characters may act differently, but that's because a) I'm a bit stupid and B) This fic is slightly AU. This should be a multi chapter story but since I have to revise and do my A-levels, updates may be slow. I'm sorry Slashers but this probably won't be a slash story, or if it is not an explicit one because although I love to read slash I can't write it, or any relationships really. Since this is my first story please take a second to review, let me know what you think. Positives will motivate me, constructive criticism will help me make this story better and flames will be used to cook burgers. mmmmm. By the way, this isn't the stuff I usually write, this is a plot bunny that wouldn't go away and it just so happens that this one is the first one that has actually interested any of my friends, so it's getting uploaded. Also I have no idea what's going to happen later on in the story either, so you'll be getting it as soon as I will._

_DISCLAIMER: I don't own Red dwarf. Or either Lara Croft or The Wizard of Oz which both have a casual mention. If I've missed anything out I don't own that either. If you are a lawyer looking for un-disclaimered works then I would like to say GET A LIFE. I do own series 1-8 of red dwarf on DVD, a semi-RD Tumblr blog and a diary full of cartoon pictures of the characters but as far as I am aware that doesn't mean I own it. if anyone knows differently then please tell me. Once again- I'm not Grant, Naylor or the Beeb so me no own Red Dwarf :(._

He screamed "down" at the top of his lungs, throwing himself onto the metal floor the moment he saw the flash out of some previously-hidden instinct that went against his cowardly nature, feeling three resounding thumps as the others joined him. A moment later the flash followed through with a boom, a wash of power overcoming him and shaking everything around, forcing him up in the air and pushing him backwards. A further moment later, still not long enough for conscious thought ,he hit the ground again, feeling agony shooting through his projected body, but unwilling to welcome the black creeping into the edge of his vision. He lay spread-eagled, unable to get up, gasping in the pain that pulsed through him right down to his pixelated bones, desperately trying to stay awake and yelling, though he knew it came out as little more than a croak, for help that he knew couldn't come. The last four entities in the universe (he didn't count GELFs or Simulants) were all involved so there was no one to help them. The only chance of rescue for Smug Git himself, but Rimmer would quite frankly rather die.

He could feel himself fading away, and unable to fight anymore, he welcomed the returning darkness, slipping away with a final sigh, knowing that he was the closest to the blast so hopefully the others were probably safer. Knowing in his computer-simulated gut this was the end he made sure his last words were better than the last times, at least fitting (gazpacho soup? Only the good die young?) "You total, total g…" he had to let the sentence hang as he lost consciousness, fate robbing him of the chance to finish what he was saying. The last thing he heard was the fizzling and then clunk of his own Light Bee as it shut off.

Minutes rather than seconds later, Kryten 'awoke' if you could call it that. Rebooting himself he regained awareness and checked the error messages clouding his sight. 'Condition Tangerine' well he could deal with that couldn't he? He'd had worse, after that unfortunate incident on the Nova 5 it had read Scarlet for quite a while.

'Repair information- warranty voided, reconnect wiring to right arm, recalibrate lower extremities, no signal from Jazz FM, replace head.' This might be a little difficult since the only head willing to talk to him at the moment was Spare Head 3, and there was no way he could expect a 'droid rot infested CPU to be able to look after Mr Lister or Mr Cat. He was however willing to let it loose on that Smee Heee Mr Rimmer. Then he remembered that it _was _actually The Universes' Biggest Coward that had found the bomb and warned them to duck before it went off. He felt just a smidge of guilt about that. Concentrating hard he set his repair programmes to do what they could for his head and to recalibrate his legs, used his left arm to fix the wiring in his right and set his left nipple nut to scan manually to see if he could pick up Jazz again.

Once he was able to move again he stood and looked to see if he could anything. The entire room from bulkhead to bulkhead was charred, and was lit by a few small fires that were quickly burning themselves out and closer to where the explosion took place a strange turquoise glow for which he couldn't see a source. He quickly looked around and ascertained that there had been no damage to the outer bulkhead or to the structure of the ship, though he really should have known that when he had woken up _inside_ the ship and not sucked out into the vacuum of space surrounded by the organic matter of his masters. Doing a full 360 he soon saw two lumps spread eagled behind him on the red metal floor. Walking closer to the two bumps he realised they were indeed, Mr Lister and Mr Cat and was pleased to note that despite being unconscious they were both breathing.

Kneeling before the two he slapped their cheeks until they started to wake up. For his efforts he was invited to "Smeg off" by Mr Lister whose slurred speech worried Kryten until he remembered the six empty cans of JMC extra strength lager on Lister's bunk. Realising he would have to use cunning to encourage Lister to wake up, Kryten smirked. "Lie mode engaged" he whispered before continuing in a much a louder voice "Mr Lister, Sir, I have that extra-hot prawn vindaloo with naan bread and beer-milkshake you ordered". Immediately the lazy scouser jumped up as if he had been told Jim Bexley Speed himself was in the building. Seeing that Kryten was in fact without the meal, he growled. "Krytes remind me to give you some more lying lessons and then to kill you." Mission accomplished there, Kryten turned his attention to Mr Cat who was still laying prone. A thought niggled about why he hadn't seen the hologram yet, but Kryten thought when they got around to looking in the cupboards they'd soon find him cowering, gibbering and otherwise proving he had less courage than a certain lion. Slapping the Cat until he heard the familiar screeching voice telling him to "quit touching me, beige plastic was so never, I'm afraid your lack of style will rub off and if Dibley returns, you die". It was a longer response from the Cat than he expected, but the self-centredness told Kryten the last surviving member of Felix Sapiens was absolutely fine.

Behind him a softly spoken, almost gasped "Smeg" caught his attention and both Kryten and the Cat turned to see a dejected Lister with a light bee in his hand. The light bee was badly scratched, burnt and was spewing turquoise light into the air, solving Kryten's mystery from earlier. The scouser appeared to be in a deep state of shock and was repeatedly saying "no, no, no". Filling what was otherwise an oppressive silence. Unfortunately for Lister's temper, the Cat chose this moment to open his fanged mouth.

"Wow, guess Goalpost Head actually did something right for once. Get rid of himself! Just being around all that polyester was seriously damning my cool!" The Cat saw Lister's face change, but unfortunately didn't realise that the expression on his face was one of anger and continued. "Man that guy's had more lives than that hot video game chick from the 1990's Lara Croft, but never mind 'cause he's gone now!" The last part was said with a grin on his face, a complete opposite of the rage on Lister's who suddenly snapped. The usually jovial and calm last man alive lashed out without thinking, throwing the light bee in his hand, hitting right between Cat's eyes knocking him out again and having the added effect of splitting the already damaged device in two. The scouser was seeing red and went to follow through with his fists or maybe a good kick but the service droid held him back, hugging him against his chest panels tightly to stop him escaping and comforting him as the anger turned to sadness, and Lister started to cry.

_so how was it? Drop a review or PM me and tell me please! I know the characters are a bit OOC, but bear with me. Chapter 2 will be coming up ASAP as long as at least one person says they like it. _


	2. how will we survive

_a/n- well here's the second chapter and I still have no idea how the story will end as I'm writing as it comes to me. All I can say is that I'm trying to include Holly in it but I'm not sure which one so if anyone has any preference, tell me. This chapter actually came to me sooner than I thought it would, but what can I say, it's a very persistent plot bunny. Oh and before I forget - thanks to LittleBritainFanatic for commenting, following and adding the story as a favourite, glad you're enjoying the story! And to everyone else reading I hope you enjoy this chapter too. _

_DISCLAIMER- nope, still don't own RD but again if anyone would like to give the boys to me I wouldn't say no (*hint, hint*) I also don't own Dumbo, Titanic or anything else you recognise. if you are a lawyer looking for un-disclaimered fan fiction I suggest you look somewhere else then man, cos you won't find any here! _

_Personal disclaimer- sorry if this chapter is rubbish. I had a geology essay today and I had to look at UCAS *boring*. Also I'm part Irish and this is St Patrick's day so there are other things on my mind right now up to and including watching two of my mates get drunk and singing **Oh Danny Boy** whilst wrestling._

Chapter 2.

The Cat groaned as he came to, and opened one eye to check his surroundings, finding himself in the medibay with Kryten standing over him, he couldn't see Lister and so took a deep sniff, using his famous nasal talents to find Monkey Boy instead. 'He smells close, he must just be in the corner' thought Cat. Regaining awareness a little more, he tried asking for a couple of his favourite things, relishing in the fact that he was injured so they had to do everything for him. "Ffiiisshh" "mirrrrrrorrrrrr" even to himself his words sounded slurred but the look on the mechanoid's face told Cat he had been understood and Kryten went off, understanding from previous experiences Cat would not be a very good patient until his demands were met.

On the other side of the medibay, a distraught looking Lister sat at a desk, examining two fractured pieces of what looked to be scrap metal, but that been a short time ago been the physical form of Arnold J. Rimmer. Quickly growing fed up of the Cat's self-pitying moans and a comment about how "grime and dead loser don't go with my little black number with silver spangles" he placed the two parts down and smacked his hand against the desk "give it a smegging rest Cat won't you!" The Cat hissed, and sent him a glare but did so, amusing Lister who hadn't realised that instinct had been passed on from his cat Frankenstein who had had quite a temper on her when she wanted to.

Losing Rimmer, who had become a friend he supposed, had taken away his last link to the Red Dwarf crew. Looking at the hologram with his gangly 6 foot 2 frame, his stupid curly hair, his massive nostrils and the ears so big they put Dumbo's to shame had reminded him of so many nights spent making fun of him with Peterson, Chen and Selby. Without the silly smirk and the ridiculous arguments he was pretty sure he would go nuts, he needed arguments to live, and he just couldn't have that with Kryten or The Cat. Kryten just couldn't insult people and as for cat he was too stupid to insult properly- they'd just go over his head. Smeg. He_ needed_ Rimmer, smeghead and all. With a sigh he pocketed the two fragments of light bee and decided to go where he could actually think, walking past_ their_ quarters he sighed again seeing Bob, Madge and the scutter Rimmer had once called Stabbim cleaning up the charred remains of blankets, that inflatable banana, and among other things Rimmer's blow up doll, for a second a ghost of the old Dave Lister grinned, internally remarking that at least they had gone together. He also noted that his guitar had made relatively unscathed and decided to take that with him. The elevator journey up to the observation decks took a while but Lister couldn't bring himself to care, drawing in on himself and reminiscing the few truly good times the Boys from the Dwarf had had together, such as Kryten's Party.

Meanwhile Kryten had returned to the medibay juggling a large mirror and a plate with a large portion of Trout-al-a-crème. The Cat was exactly where he had left him, which didn't surprise him- the concussion should have had him down longer than it did and also-he was lazy. However it did surprise and alarm him that Mr Lister was not where he was before, the Mechanoid hoped he had not done anything rash as humanoids were prone to do when grieving. Nevertheless Kryten delivered the goods to Cat who first looked in the mirror checking himself from every angle and then declared "daaaamn, even with a cut I look sexy! Attention all lady cats dashing single sex god ready and willing!" checking on himself once more he gave a low wolf whistle. Finally placing the mirror down, he picked up the plate and started batting the fish around effectively dismissing Kryten. The Cat always took pleasure in his food and took the opportunity to sing his favourite song "I'm going to eat you little fishy, I'm going to eat you little fishy, cos I like little fish" but the normality of the foodplay didn't mean Kryten wanted to see it. He'd have trouble enough scrubbing the inevitable smears of parsley sauce of the medicomp and the other surface without having his pedantic chip kick in at the wrong time again. Last time it had taken him three weeks to fully weld his hand back together after it had been slashed to pieces for pointing out leg wax did not belong all over the screen of the navigation computer.

Lister looked out into the vast abyss of space from the safety of the Perspex observation dome. It seemed to him that this place was the only location he could talk civilly with hologram and it brought back memories. That conversation he'd had with Rimmer after the post pod arrived and he'd found out his dad was dead for one. The first time he had gone up to the observation deck after the crew died and the emptiness of the surrounding black, not as many stars as it seemed from earth, had really made the 'last man alive' bit hit home.

When the crew was alive, he'd never really spent much time up here, only venturing up once or twice when the vending machine at the top was out of fun sized chocolates or that time Petersen and the gang had got so drunk they'd waited until everyone else had left and spent the evening shouting clichés like "I'm the king of the world" and recreating that scene from titanic with the railings. He probably wouldn't have remembered it if Rimmer hadn't have showed him a video when he wrote up the report the next morning. Now the ghosts of times past played out in front of him as if imprinted onto the glass, faded but continuous in his mind's eye. He'd changed a lot since then, growing up. A few years ago the fifty pennycent admission price would have gone towards a bevvie or more likely several because space was just boring, well space, really. Now of course he didn't have to pay but he didn't mind standing up here pointing vaguely in the direction he _thought_ the Earth might be in thinking about whether it was really still there, and whether he would get home. Slowly he walked over to the memorial he had made for the crew when he'd first accepted they were gone and knelt before it adding a new photo of a glowering individual with sticky out ears and a stupid regulation haircut before standing up and looking at it, making sure it was just right. It wasn't the most flattering picture ever, but then again it was of Rimmer so it never was going to be anyway. Lister thought back to when he had just finished the memorial 'garden' and the then soft light hologram had gone ape about the addition of a photo of him, arguing that since he was still here he didn't need to be relegated to the history books just yet.

With the picture out of the way, the pudgy scouser went over to the vending machine. "Vhat vould you like today zir?" it asked with a strong German accent. Lister had long forgotten that the machine up here was German and it stung, reminding him of yet another memory. He saw his younger self asking Rimmer what death was like and being told "death, it's like going on holiday with a group of Germans." Collecting himself before he had a chance to fall into yet another bout of very unmanly crying he answered "six cans of wicked extra strength lager mate". Of course what he actually received was six cans of JMC super strength lager which has an alcohol content equivalent to a watered down alcopop and had a kick similar to imbibing pure ethanol, but it was all that was available so there was nothing he could do about that. Sitting down on the steps he drank and cried and wished to god, strangely that he had a fried-egg-chilli-chutney sandwich.

By the time Kryten finally tracked him down and made his way to the observation dome after the stupid express lift had sent him down to the diesel decks, Lister had finished that original six, another six and was making good headway on a third, god-only-knew how. Kryten, who had still not quite got the hang of ambivalent on demand just yet wasn't sure how to express being glad that his master hadn't committed suicide like he'd seen on Androids yet ashamed at his feeling the need to get dangerously drunk. The scouser was virtually unconscious and laying in what appeared to be a very painful position, even to Kryten who didn't have any pain receptors. Preparing himself Kryten picked up Lister in a Fireman's carry, who was well past 'nicely drunk' and into the realms of completely 'pished' and moved into the express lift to get him to bed in one of the guest quarters.

Once Kryten had slightly ungracefully deposited the drunk human onto the officer's guest quarters, the first room he found where rolling out of bed would not cause him to crash into any furnishings that could cause further injury, he made sure Mr Lister would be slightly more comfortable when he woke up. First he removed the biker boots, glad he hadn't got a sense of smell as he did so and then the leather jacket and cargo trousers, leaving him in his London Jets t-shirt with the three curry stains, one custard mark and generally dirty appearance and a pair of boxer shorts that he could only guess the original colour of. Hanging the removed clothes in the cupboard across the room and spraying a liberal amount of air freshener on both shoes and outfit Kryten then looked at what else he could do to limit Lister's pain in the morning. Getting a thought, the mechanoid raided the first aid kit for extra strength aspirin and left a single dose and some water before removing the rest of the tablets not wanting to tempt fate and left the room telling one of the scutters to come and get him when the man awoke.

_a/n- if you like drop a review, if you think I can do better drop a review telling me how. If you're my teacher stop being so hard on me! Flames will be used for grilling burgers. Good reviews will make me write faster. _


	3. time i had some time alone

_A/N- well three chapters in three days. wow. plot bunny jut won't leave off even as I write despite a migraine. Male Holly and Ace will probably feature in the story at some point just not in this chapter. I still hope anybody who is reading this likes it, and what ever they think, I hope they leave a review. Flames will of course be used for smoking kippers :) There is a rather long flashback in this chapter so to make it easier to read only the first and last sentences are in Italics. Also if any characters, especially Rimmer in the flashback seems different than usual I apologise, this is A) my first fic, and B) a chapter produced under the influence of watching copious amounts of The Brittas Empire (another Chris Barrie show if you didn't know) because it showed in my recommended list on YouTube, I was curious, and I was stuck at home sick all day. If you haven't seen it, give it a whirl, it's pretty funny. _

_DISCLAIMER- I don't own the characters, I'm just playing with them, though if anybody wants to give them to me- YAY! Anything else you recognise isn't mine. the simulant in my mind has the face of my English teacher but you're welcome to project anybody you hate onto it. As always- to copyright lawyers looking for un-disclaimered work - Jog on my son! Get a life because Mr Flibble is very cross with you. _

Chapter 3

Lister woke up the next afternoon with a thumping headache and immediately regretted having overdone it so much that even the quiet whirring of the exiting scutter sounded like the movements of a tank through an industrial amplifier. Chugging down the aspirin dry, he fought the urge to heave, holding down the tablets but knowing that one dose was never going to be enough to get rid of his monster hangover. Slowly becoming more aware he looked at the clock, he saw it was three o'clock in the afternoon- slightly earlier than his usual wake up time but not early enough to warrant him going back to bed. Feeling a light draft, the self-proclaimed space bum looked down and saw he was dressed only in a t-shirt and boxers. 'When did he undress himself?' Lister couldn't remember. Then a sudden more pressing thought entered his head and this one he couldn't help voicing aloud "where the smegging smeg are my clothes?" he shouted at Kryten who had just entered the room, hovering just inside the doorway.

Without missing a beat, clearly used to this situation, Kryten hobbled over to the cupboard and got the filthy clothes out, wishing sorely that Mr Lister had have let him wash them and also wondering why his legs hadn't fully repaired. Passing the garments to Lister, Kryten made his excuses "I'll just go and make your breakfast sir, Rogan Josh cornflakes and onion sprinkles with a glass of cooled madras sauce isn't it today." For some reason, Lister noticed, his simulated Canadian accent was always better when he'd just suffered major damage, though he supposed he could pin that to the automatic partial reset that was standard after repair operations meaning it took him a little while to fully corrupt again. "Yeah, Krytes it is, and in my quarters, never feels right being in officer rooms". After last night the android had seen more of Mr Lister's in-and-out bits than he wanted to see ever. He knew that if he was still human he sure as hell wouldn't be getting a double Polaroid because of that mental image. In fact given the small amount he knew about the flaw-filled human design, the particular image he was presented with last night should completely destroy a double Polaroid instead.

Lister quickly pulled on his clothes and walked back to his quarters, correctly assuming that the stairs would be faster than the so called xpress lifts. Walking in, with most of the charred furniture gone and the damage cleared up, it looked like nothing had really happened. The only thing in the room different was the stripped bottom bunk, the scutters having removed all trace of his ex-roommate at what was, presumably Kryten's request. Looking at himself in the mirror even Lister could tell he was a complete mess. His clothes were filthy, but then again he was fine with that, it was his appearance he was concerned about. His eyes were solemn and red ringed, looking like a conjunctivitis sufferer who had just been informed his dog was dead, not at all his bubbly self. His nose had a red tint to it, well more than a tint really, in fact it looked like one step down from Rudolph the red nosed reindeer. It also looked like he'd been chewing on his Rasta plaits again. Ugh. Lister knew if he'd started that habit again then he'd need to start showering. He'd even have to. Wash. His. Hair. As soon as the thought of what happened last time entered his head, he grimaced severely. 'How did I manage to get space mumps from chewing on me hair?" He asked himself, but he had managed to get space mumps from his nocturnal habit and he had no intention of getting it again.

The android entered the room carrying a tray with Lister's favourite breakfast and with the Cat in tow. "Hey monkey boy you look like a mess, you must be feeling better" Cat screeched as he pirouetted into the centre of the room. The scouser inwardly groaned, in normal situations when he wasn't apocalyptically hungover, he would swing for the Cat. He needed to learn to watch his mouth. But on this occasion he _was _hungover and he _was_ a mess so he let it go for now. Digging into his special meal Lister finally broached the subject of the elephant in the room. "Kryten, what really happened in the blast?" The Cat smiled, that feral grin of his, and opened his mouth as if to say something but was elbowed in the stomach by Kryten before he could say something, which was undoubtedly offensive and less than helpful. When the mechanoid finally spoke, it was in a cautious voice as if he didn't want to say anything that would upset the closest thing he had to a master, despite the subject of what he was talking about. "Sir, you know what happened, there was an explosion in your room and then, well, we all know what happened". The hedging and essentially useless answer annoyed Lister, but he decided to give Kryten another chance before he engineered an introduction of the mechanoid to the business end of a lump hammer. "No, Krytes what really happened?" Kryten took an unnecessary sigh before speaking "Well Mr Lister, sir, as I'm sure you'll remember it all started when you wanted to take a trip to that simulant ship…"

**Flashback**

"_Hey Cat man can you smell anything fishy about that derelict?"_ Lister asked as they approached a threatening looking chunk of black metal, what was clearly once a simulant ship. Both Kryten and Cat replied it was clear at the same time. Seeing an opportunity to pick up more supplies, Lister yelled excitedly "right we're going in, getting supplies". Rimmer, who up until now had been surprisingly quiet chose to input his entirely unwanted penny's worth into the conversation "No we're not, smeg for brains and I'll tell you why. That is a simulant ship. Where there is a simulant ship, there are simulants and I don't want to face another one, ever, it's not even like we need anything and I can just tell something bad is going to happen." He was wearing that gormless look that was almost always painted on his face with just a hint of humour visible underneath and the always present glint of cowardice in his eyes. Kryten chipped in too "he's right sir, we don't need to stop for supplies I suggest we pass it by."

Soon, despite all their protestations the boys were on Starbug where Lister set a course for the other ship regardless and only half an hour after setting off they were docked with the imposing vessel. As they were opening the airlock Kryten spoke in a surprisingly alarmed tone "Sirs, I hate to say this to you but we aren't alone on the ship, I can only guess we didn't see it before because the signal is so weak, the simulant is on its way out". Rimmer made some more scared and harassed noises that went by largely ignored and Cat received a look that could kill from Lister who was more than a little annoyed by the fact his 'famous' nose hadn't picked the rogue mutant up.

They were careful, well more so than usual with Rimmer of all people standing guard with a bazookoid as they transferred crates of everything from toilet paper to total immersion video games onto their ship. It had creeped Lister out that the hologram had volunteered but then, he had been acting strangely for a while now since the incident with the emohawk and personally Lister believed that Rimmer's cowardice hadn't all returned, leaving just a smidge of Ace in the man's coding. However looking at Ace and then at Rimmer you really couldn't believe that they were one in the same or even that there was a bit of one within the other. Even with this extra care no one noticed the half-dead simulant who crawled onto Starbug and hid in the same equipment cupboard where Lister's guitar and the entire supply of pot noodles was stashed to keep both away from the wrong hands who might want to inflict evil with them. Especially the pot noodles.

Once they had finally filled Starbug's rear section with crates they returned to Red Dwarf quickly unpacking and at Rimmer and Krytens' insistence stowed everything in the proper position to fit with the ship's cargo manifest. Whilst they were doing this the simulant crawled back out of the cupboard and around the ship until he found somewhere where the humanoids frequented to leave his farewell present. He knew he was dying, had less than an hour to live but he was going to take out some more scum before he did so, or his name was not Killer 10010011R (he was proud of admitting the R stood for Ruthless) and so set the bomb in the microwave of the sleeping quarters.

When the foursome returned from packing the goods away hours later they were greeted by the body of a dead simulant in the doorway. Reasoning that this was the weak life sign they had found before they thought nothing of it and just shoved him into the waste disposal system, no more and no less than a simulant deserved. It was ten minutes later when Rimmer felt the disturbance of the microwave in his light bee, causing him to glitch glowing transparent and then translucent right the way through the rainbow before fizzling out for a moment as he got used to the leaking waves. "Listy, if this is one of your kebabs again, I'll smegging kill you. I'll bet you anything it's one of your smegging kebabs you goit". Lister was pretty sure he hadn't been making any Diablos recently so he took the bet, confident he if he played his cards right he could make Rimmer's life hell for at least a week on this alone. "Go on then you Ionian Smeghead, check then!"

Rimmer slowly and carefully tip toed over towards the microwave looking at the window on the front and listen to the sounds of electrical arcing coming from his light bee as the radiation levels in his immediate vicinity increased and from the microwave itself. Looking through the glass he could see a red flashing light the distance between flashes decreasing rapidly. Even Rimmer chairman of the extreme cowardice award knew what this was, yet he knew he had to warn the others. He stammered over the words "Ttt-that's nnnot a kkebab" then taking a deep breath to get as much power as possible behind his next word "DOWN!" _Lister dropped to the floor, feeling rather than seeing the others joining him, and then, the world went yellow, then orange, then finally black. _

**Flashback ends**

Lister had not listened to Kryten's voice since a few words in when it triggered the memories of the day to be replayed in his mind. It therefore took him a few seconds to realise that the 'droid was asking him a question. He focused in on the noise as he grounded himself again until he could he it clearly "Sir, Mr Lister, Sir are you all right, you've been sitting there for while unresponsive, are you with us Sir?" Lister, unwilling to formulate a real answer around the lump of guilt lodged in his throat rasped out "fine" before crawling into his bunk and picking up a comic.

_a/n- To the person I showed the first chapter of this fic to before I put on here to see if it was decent: I know you don't watch RD but I hope this answers some questions. Please everybody read and review because I feel like hell right now and I could use some feedback of any kind just so I don't have to worry about how you guys find these chapters. All that's left to say to my readers is HAVE A NICE DAY!_


	4. ground control to Ace Rimmer

_A/N- four chapters in four days! wow and to think I had no idea where to go with it when I first started. well I was back at college today and this and that had made today pretty difficult. this has been a right bugger to write but in some ways I think it's been slightly therapeutic. I'm feeling pretty low right now though so reviews would be great. __I would like to say thanks to all my readers, especially those of you who have read it more than once. for anyone who does comment I'll credit them in the authors notes and stuff. PS. there is a bit of sexuality talk in here, nothing explicit but I've written it in because I think it's true and also to raise awareness of a marginalised sexuality._

_Disclaimer- same as usual. I don't own RD or anything else. I only own a dream where I have a yellow Vauxhall Nova with black go faster stripes. Any lawyers smeg off because none of us on this site if we owned it. flames will be used to smoke kippers etc. _

Several dimensions away, there was someone having an even worse day than Dave Lister and that person was Ace Rimmer. Ace sat in the cockpit of the Wildfire having a passionate argument over flight controls with the ship's computer, who hated the fact he never called her by her name not that he'd actually ever been told it in the first place. _This_ Ace was not the original, and the computer didn't like him one bit. She didn't think he was the right man for the job, and that was something she had apparently never told any other Rimmer, Ace or otherwise. That was the thing, he wasn't the first, second or even thousandth Ace, let alone Arnold, and according to her the only Arnold who was _possibly _worse than him was the first one she had ever come across who wasn't from her dimension. The thing is he wasn't scared of training, he wasn't afraid of hard work and unlike most other Rimmers he had good taste. Also unlike most Rimmers he actually had a talent for engineering- hologrammatic engineering to be precise- and this talent had made him a lot more likeable and playful when it came to Lister because he'd been made an officer. This new playful attitude got both him and his Lister placed in stasis for a prank they'd pulled on Hollister involving fishing wire, a camera, a poker and a doughnut, the effect of which was almost unique amongst Rimmers- he was alive having been shoved in stasis.

The one thing that he did have in common with most Rimmers is that he was ace, in not just one way. This Rimmer like most, was asexual and only really made love that one time out of some sort of perceived social obligation. She wanted to do it with him- so he did it, not really wanting to. Only a fair few of them actually accepted this though and for him the irony had never been lost- the only Rimmer to feel sexual attraction and be truly universally sexually attractive at the same time was the one whose name _was _Ace. There was one thing he could say though, he'd seen many realities where Rimmers were all kinds of things but he'd never met a fully straight one. Bisexual, usually asexual or gay, even a couple of really strange ones like where his doppelganger cross-dressed in a rather sexualised way, but he had _never _met a heterosexual Rimmer.

Today's dispute was about flight controls- he wanted control occasionally, she wanted full control. Every single Rimmer had been to see 2001: A Space Odyssey and every single one, including Ace the Original, was secretly terrified of computers with total control. That was why he'd fashioned hologrammatic controls to go along with the real ones, so if the worst happened he could still control the ship. God knows she'd made it hard enough to do anything, the instruments had a black on black motif in a poorly lit test ship in the middle of deep space which was, funnily enough, black. Rimmer was glad that the Ace in front of him had retired rather than died so he could always ask questions and had plenty of time for training. He pitied any Arnold left in the lurch by a dying Ace and expected to take the baton. But now he was thinking he would quite like to retire too, since the computer hated him and he _still _couldn't do the voice and he was _still_ a spineless weasel. "Computer set up dimension jump to nearest possible dimension" he said in his plain old Arnie J. Smeghead (or so the computer called it) voice. There was no one to fool out here, and he wasn't going to hurt his throat for no one because he'd run out of butter mints a long time ago.

He sorely wished he'd stayed at home with his Lister, Cat, Kryten, Holly and even the hologrammatic Kochanski, who he had come to tolerate over time. Even if that was only because he was a hologram engineer and had, in theory, power over her action, life and death so she didn't argue too heavily when he acted like he outranked her. He wasn't the first Ace to get homesick, he wouldn't be the last, but he was the only one ever to use his singing ability inherited from his life as Alexander the Great's chief eunuch for composing and crooning songs. Most GELFs were fond of the old crooners and so singing the oh-so-apt _suspicious minds _to a bunch of fans who didn't understand the words actually gave him an advantage when trading, strangely enough.

He was still thinking over whether there was an interdimensional pension scheme when the psycho computer from hell interrupted him. "Oi smegpot, we're in a new dimension and we're getting a message do you want it or not?" What Ace did want was a lump hammer, a reason why he took the job, and a way out of said job but afraid _she _would comply with one or all of those requests in nasty manner (dropping a lump hammer on him, for instance) he replied "why yes my pixelated friend" (or words roughly conveying the same meaning) in the full Ace Rimmer language, voice, body language and manner combo, hating himself a little more with every second that passed. Little did he know that this call would be his finest hour, calling for his special abilities.

Roughly 15 interdimensional minutes earlier, in his own dimension Kryten had decided enough was enough with Mr Lister's moping. It had been a week, and even though Kryten was the first to admit he really didn't understand the human act of grieving, he was sure it sure be done in a week. 'Just look at Mr Cat' he thought 'three days afterwards he was doing the conga'. In all fairness to the Cat, he was doing a pasodoble, and had never stopped dancing in the first place.

Kryten scrolled through his data banks looking for relevant information to help Lister but none of it seemed applicable. All the data seemed to be for women, involved flowers and were about parental or spousal death. There wasn't a whole lot it seemed on helping the universe's slobbiest entity cope with the loss of his anal retentive, love-and-hate, smeg-for-brains, unpopular, already-dead-but-not-properly, roommate when you don't have any Arum Lilies. Still lost for what to do, Kryten suddenly had an epiphany moment. "Of course! Holly! A computer with an IQ of 6000 should know what to do. Plus she was female, and females are supposed to be good with feelings", justified Kryten in his thoughts. Unfortunately the version of Holly that booted up was a middle-aged balding man with blue eyes and a deadpan cockney accent. Quickly Kryten realised this must have been the original Holly he had heard about when he had joined the crew officially. Luckily however, despite the face change, Holly seemed to have a full memory and so still might be able to help, Kryten thought.

"Alrigh' mate, what can I do ya for" the talking head deadpanned to Kryten who was still glancing in every direction to make he was alone. "Well Mr Holly sir" Kryten responded unsure how to address him, "I was hoping you could help me with getting Mr Lister to stop grieving, sir". The head shut his eyes for a second and replied "grieving, for who?" Suddenly Kryten started to think this was not the smartest of ideas but it was what he has. "He's grieving for Mr Rimmer sir". Upon hearing the name Holly tilted his head, and looked puzzled. "Wha' Arnold, well he died years ago, I made the hologram meself Dave don't need to get himself up set. Yep, Kryten was pretty sure now he'd made the wrong decision but he went along with it anyway " No sir, I don't think you quite understand, he's gone hologram and all sir, and we have no spare light bees so I want to cheer Mr Lister up a bit. Again the computer thought, and slowly came up with a solution. "How about gettin' on the blower to that Ace fella, he might come for a visit which might perk Dave up a bit." Suddenly Kryten was sure he did indeed chosen the right co-conspirator and smiled to himself as he set up the radio gear. Precisely explaining what had happened what easy, explaining to the Wildfire's computer why exactly Ace should help them when she was clearly in a bit of a state was much harder. Personally Kryten wondered if she might be on her computer hard-drive RAM clearance period this week. For female computers they went mad over every little thing and cry, and male robots got more pedantic and slightly more resistant. The only immune ones were simulants and Kryten didn't like thinking out those creatures, a disgrace to mechanoids. At the same time he felt sorry for holograms who suffered from both RAM clearance and hormonal change one week a year, making them frankly aggressive, pedantic and irritating beyond compare. Though Rimmer was always those things, since he received his hard light bee he actually did something when he got aggressive and usually Kryten and Lister chloroformed him with a pair of socks and kept him in quarantine for the first couple of days, which always were the worst part of the week.

Ace was smegged off. Not only had the computer from hell jumped him into a reality very close to another ship, but this ship was requesting help and she was fighting with the mechanoid sending out the distress signals. It was inconsiderate and petty, both towards him and the mechanoid. The moment he found another Rimmer, no matter how much training they had or how suitable they were for the job he was gone, retired from the threshold of front line service.

Swerving to miss a small chunk of debris in his direct path he manipulated the controls to point at the giant red ship. He didn't care whether it was a really important mission or not, he was going. Computer be damned. In fact if they computer didn't think it was worth it- all the better, he was in control dammit and he was going to assert himself. Because this mission was on Red dwarf and where there was a Little Rouge one there was a Rimmer he was going. Because where there was Rimmer there was a ticket to a cosy retirement.

Luckily for him the computer did eventually agree with the mechanoid, giving him an almost feral grin as she explained that "they wanted help because they'd just lost a crew member". Ace shivered, she knew something, and she wasn't sharing it with him. And because of her reaction he was almost completely sure it was going to be something that would throw a spanner into the works when it came to his plans of an early retirement.

The Wildfire pulled into the landing dock having narrowly missed what looked like a small moon lodged in the side of the ship, for no other reason because the captain and the autopilot were both attempting to fly the small craft, imputing opposite direction information just to try and annoy the other into surrendering control. But eventually it was in, and smoothly landed in one of the catapult assisted short bays without outwardly obvious issues. Then the cockpit opened, lined up perfectly to the ladder and first the head, then shoulders of a man with perfectly coiffed straight blonde hair and wearing a golden flight suit popped up.

Ace climbed out, wondering at the empty bay, usually he got at least one witness, before noticing the lone, highly recognisable frame of a Series 4000 mechanoid stood in a dark corner a short distance away from the floodlighted landing pad. Taking a deep breath, he prepared. It was time, time to be Ace once again.

_A/N. hope you enjoyed it guys, now remember to review. I now live off the hope of a review, and that hope is waning. Have a nice day!_


	5. one step beyond

_A/N sorry about the delay in writing this chapter. I've been trying to write this since just after I posted the last one but I had so many ideas it was hard to know what to put down. And I thought the last chapter was a bugger to write. Well I hope this chapter is good, but if it isn't I can blame it on the fact I have watched both Tomb Raider films as well as all three parts of Back to Earth today, which are arguably crap. I have actually had a bad few days, yesterday and today I had to work and yesterday I got punched in the stomach by a 5 year old who said she wanted to "blow me up" (I'm NOT kidding) at the museum where I work. A big thank you to LIttleBritainFanatic for reviewing, and who made my day when I checked for reviews on Saturday shortly after getting beaten up by a Beaver scout! Also for anyone interested in engines/vehicles some of the marvellous Mr Barrie's shows are on YouTube. Others have been blocked by channel 5 (F you__) for copyright breach but you can see the bit where he confesses his love for motorbikes and pretends his biker name is Ace ;)_

_Disclaimer- I do not own Red Dwarf. This is unfortunately truth. If I did Holly would still be in it, series 11 would be showing now, series 12 would be on the way and Lister and Rimmer would have kissed 5 series ago. All I own is a wish that they'll sack Jeremy Clarkson and replace him with Chris Barrie on Top Gear. _

The first thing Cat or Lister knew about Ace's visit was when Kryten had used the red alert system to summon them to the drive room. Lister, his nerves shot to hell ran all the way there, breathing raggedly through the panic attack that threatened to claim him. Cat on the other hand was less concerned, attempting to finish ironing his crimson tartan suit before being frogmarched along by two scutters each dragging him by the sleeves using their claw. The Cat of course let out a stream of colourful epithets good enough to make even the hardest of sailor GELFs, a type renowned for hereditary Tourette's, blush and cover their ears but the scutters were being the Duke and didn't listen.

When they got there they each had very different reactions. Lister usually so pleased to see Ace was apoplectically angry, launching straight into "what the SMEG are you doing here?" despite still being out of breath. The space hero smirked before replying in his own cultured tones "nice to see you as well, Skipper". Lister liked the test pilot but right now he thought Ace should go to hell. Just seeing any Rimmer that wasn't his alive and kicking (at least figuratively) made him cringe. Why his Rimmer? Besides if Lister's personal theory about the cause of Rimmer's behaviour was true then it was that little bit of Ace within him that got him killed and Lister did not want to see that bit again. Lastly he was angry and upset because he didn't think seeing Ace, knowing that it wasn't annoying his Rimmer, would be as exciting. At least the snide remarks in the background about weddings and games of 'spot the submarine' had provided him with something to laugh at before, even if it had been snorts of derision.

When Cat entered the drive room he was happy. The scutters finally let him go and he hissed at them, arching his back unconsciously in an echo of his ancestors as he did so. Still oblivious to anything else in the room, he brushed down the creases in his suit jacket and finally looked up to face the others, a toothy grin plastered on his face. It only widened when he saw the space hero leaning against the navicomp. "Ace, good to see ya bud. Do ya like my suit! I made it myself!" Ace smiled back, hiding the sarcastic smirk he wanted to show and not completely masking a bit of confusion "very nice Cat, how do you keep producing such masterpieces?" This Ace hadn't mastered being nice, or tried, but he had mastered _pretending_ to be sincere.

Ace continued to look confused, focusing on the doorway opposite him. "Where's Arnie boy Kryters?" He asked, hoping the deep macho voice wouldn't show his worry that this wasn't his chance to retire. Kryten had the presence of mind to look guilty that he hadn't explained the situation as both Cat and Lister glared at him. "Well, Mr Ace sir, I'm afraid that's why we called, I thought your computer would've told you. Mr Rimmer's dead sir." Ace's heart sunk, 'no replacement in _this _dimension then' he thought. Out loud he exclaimed "what!" Unfortunately it was in his own voice and not Ace's and he hoped no one noticed. From the way they stared he was guessing that his hopes were dashed. "Hey Ace you sounded just like Goalpost Head for a moment, do it again!" Catt said at the same time Ace tried to cover his own back "sorry just had a bit of a cold, voice keeps breaking and all that".

Kryten started to speak again, looking directly into his hazel eyes with his own electric blue ones. "Sir I called you in to see if you could help us out, Mr Lister's depressed and I was hoping you could do something". Internally the part of him that was still Arnold Judas Rimmer wanted to say 'like smegging bog-bot from hell' while Ace said "what can I do to help Kryters?" But that of course was the question they all wanted to ask.

Lister had stopped listening soon after he had seen Ace, the familiar angular features, even softened by the blond wig too much for him. The moment he could, he left still feeling pretty low. It seemed that for him to be his usual optimistic self, he needed to be belittled and annoyed by Rimmer. Talk about masochism or what! Once he felt he could escape, he did it instantly, ducking out the door quickly and walking back to his quarters. If he couldn't feel good, he reasoned, he might as well feel comfortable.

Reaching the dingy quarters that still, despite washing, smelled of burning he let out a deep sigh. Before entering the room, he stopped at the dispenser opposite and picked up several six packs and a couple of curries. He intended to go into full bender mode, and did not want to have to get up again during it.

Back in the room, he avoided looking at the bottom bunk or the lockers, which though stripped of any trace of the man including the "no smoking" signs and the "Arnie does it best" headlines reminded him of Rimmer. Instead he threw the beer and curries onto one end of the bunk and climbed onto his bed. He set the music player to Rasta Billy Skank "the skankiest skank around" and shouted "lock", sealing himself from the rest of the ship, just wanting peace.

Cracking a can of lager open, he remembered a time just after Rimmer had become hard light when he'd dared him to chug a can. Somehow the smeghead had managed to down the entire thing in a few seconds, beating Lister by a moment. Thinking of how hungover the hologram was the next morning, not used to it, made him snort his beer all over his Mugs Murphy t-shirt "Crap!" he yelled, feeling the warm liquid soaking through the thin cotton. Noticing the toilet had swung out, obviously taking the expletive as a prompt, he yelled "not you!" and went right back to swilling down the god awful Special Brew.

Meanwhile, still in the drive room Kryten, Cat, Ace and a couple of scutters positioned themselves at a table, trying to come up with a plan to help Lister. The scutters both had a pad in front of them, writing down notes since no one on the ship with the exception of the scouser could speak scutter. Cat with his brain the size of a pea, thought about making the human a new suit, Ace stroked his chin and thought about what _his_ Lister would do, and Kryten trawled his etiquette chip to see if there was anything that could help. Spare Head Three rested on the table, spewing nonsense in a Yorkshire accent because unfortunately Kryten had taken Ace's remark that "two heads are better than one" in a rather literal manner. The method in his madness being that since spare head three was the head used aboard the Nova 5, having gone mad with guilt since, knew the most about grieving having done so himself.

Thirty minutes and much arguing, threatening and insulting later, all they had decided on was that both Spare Head Three and Cat should both shut up. Simply because the matter was serious and should be dealt with by those with brains larger than a raisin. They had also decided that Holly should sit in, and the computer was mostly scribing the conversation and only making comments to clarify his notes. It seemed that the senile computer was having a quiet binary conversation with the spare head and keeping him occupied but other than that wasn't doing a whole lot.

Another hour went by, giving an agreement that they should come up with step one, enact it and then proceed with a meeting to make further plans based on the outcome of that step. Basically, they had decided to try step one, and if it cocked up spectacularly, try another tack. But first of course they had to come up with a step one, and they just couldn't seem to agree on what it should be. Ace also thought they should at some point they should try to resurrect the hologram" (secretly thinking a hologram would be a suitable replacement), but Kryten disagreed saying that they had no more light bees. Even if they did, Kryten argued, Rimmer would be resurrected as a soft light hologram and he'd said that it was "a fate worse than death".

It took a further two hours and three rounds of tea and bourbon biscuits before they eventually agreed on what step one would be. "We have to have a funeral" Ace said "we have to give him a chance to say goodbye and move on." Ace too wanted to move on, preferably to a dimension where he could recruit a suitable replacement, and so wanted to fix this soon. For once Kryten agreed "what an excellent suggestion that is sir, maybe it will stop Mr Lister pretending he's still alive." And so they decided on step one of their plan.

They decided planning was the best way of ensuring success and Ace and Kryten started planning the funeral with an anal retentive's eye for detail, both possessing that particular trait. Ace suggested a space graveyard he knew, in orbit around a planetoid, saying "it's where a lot of heroes are laid to rest" and showed Kryten a homing beacon to take the bee to it. Kryten himself was planning the wake, whilst Cat had been dispatched with finding a good location for the ceremony. Soon though, the group hit a snag. For a funeral, they needed the light bee, and Lister had that in the inside breast pocket of his leather jacket, which he was presumably was still wearing. It seemed like step one was actually going to be 'acquire the light bee by any means necessary '. While they were hitting the snag, Ace was working on his own plan. Looking it over it certainly looked simple enough, planning had always been his strong point-

hold of light bee

disc from light bee if not use backup in hologram projection suite

funeral for light bee shell, sending it to coffin belt around planetoid

hologram using homemade hard light bee and convince it to replace me

myself in hologram's position

the others of resurrection

goodbye to replacement

the life I only took because I was horny and cadge a lift back to home dimension

It was a good plan. It was a simple plan. It was a plan he was absolutely sure would work perfectly. Looking back over it he realised point six was unnecessary since if he was going back to his home dimension he wouldn't need to convince the others we was their Rimmer. He crossed it out, a slight frown flashing across his face, worrying that his perfect theoretical planning skills were slipping. Nevermind, he thought, everything will be fine again in a few days. The only part he foresaw in his plan was making his own light bee. He was a skilled engineer but had never made his own, preferring instead to repair hard light bees. He learnt just after becoming Ace that his was a dimension where hard light had been discovered relatively early. In most other dimensions, hologrammatic technology was just crawling out of the metaphoric primordial ooze as it were. 'This' Ace thought 'was definitely one of them'. Since there were no hard light bees, or light bees full stop, around he would have to try and make his own.

_A/N- Don't forget to review! If you think it was good tell me! if you think I can do better tell me how! flames will be used to smoke **many** kippers as part of my plan to lure Ace into my room. if you are my English teacher, I know you won't think it's good enough, so smeg off and don't leave a review. _

_P.S quick game for you guys- look through my authors notes and guess which RD man I'm obsessed with. leave the answer in a PM or a review and the first person to get it right gets to give me any prompt and I have to write it. _


	6. heaven knows i'm miserable now

_monster A/N well here's chapter six. sorry about the delay, but Real Life is a bitch. I had writers block, and my Granddad has just been diagnosed with terminal cancer. though we've never really got on, I've been trying to rebuild bridges. I want to thank my one reviewer, you know who you are, and my mate Megan who prompted me to actually publish this fic in the first place, rest assured your prompt fic will be published soon. she also helped me with the light psychology mention in this chapter. _

_a few notes- wildfire's computer in my fic is named after my Niece because I am broke, it's her birthday on Tuesday, and this seemed like a good present. it is also because of her Ace acts like an evil twat in this fic. this is because she doesn't like him. she had virtually the same reaction as Rimmer when watching DJ except for the gay bit cos she's only young. (its never too early to start kids on RD)_

_secondly- the binary used in this fic is real. the first and longer piece in the chapter means F*** you and the second shorter bit means up yours. Yes I actually knew this, because I am a nerd, and no I didn't use google. Kryten does act out a bit in this chapter._

_thirdly- all subsequent simulants in my stories shall bear the name John because of the twat who sent me and others hate mail about my sexuality on tumblr because of posts about our experiences. you don't like it mate? well boo hoo mate you chose to search for the coming out tag. yes I am a girl, though you'd never know it from the way I write, the pink glasses, dresses etc. _

_DISCLAIMER- I own nothing. I have a semi broken laptop, red dwarf 1-8 just the shows and the novels, an empty bank account, a tumblr blog you're all welcome to follow and a passport photo that I swear belongs on doctor who or crimewatch. as far as I'm aware this just means I'm sad. it doesn't mean I own RD unfortunately. if I did there'd be canon slash, series 11 would be made, holly would be there and I'd be loaded. so as far as copyright lawyers go, Beggar off! I also don't own Action Man, Sinclair ZX81, Harry Potter or the Flintstones which all get a mention. if I've missed anything I don't own that either. _

_finally if you don't like really light references to Cat/Wilma Cat/Betty pairings 1) you are a true anorak 2) this chapter is mostly fine just skip the last paragraph of Cat's section_

**Chapter 6**

Ace slipped unnoticed through the decks, slinking towards the cargo bays, using the stairs to avoid attracting attention in the clunky express lifts. Only once did he fear he was being seen, but it was only a scutter, for some unknown reason wearing a cowboy hat and holster. He gave the giraffe-like machine a death-glare, and it raced away following after its friend, letting him continue. Ace was well aware he was more than a little paranoid, but after 30 years or so in a lonely and dangerous existence, he figured he'd earned the right to be a little mad. He was an Ace sure, but he hadn't completely changed. The only difference was that the cowardly nature had become a full front of paranoia and that he now was more than 'just a little barmy'.

After an hour of running along corridors like a bizarre cross between Action Man and a greyhound with a jet engine up its backside, fast but ducking into the shadows every few seconds, he reached the landing bay. He had never been so happy to see the _wildfire_ though to be fair, he'd never been pleased to see the ship at all before anyway. Ace ran up to the craft, wanting to get on with his plan as soon as possible and needing his tools in the ship to do so. Heaving as hard as he could he tried to get the cockpit door to open, but it wouldn't budge no matter how hard he pulled it. "Let me in you jumped up bad excuse for a Sinclair ZX81!" he yelled. In his haste, he then realised, he'd forgotten to put his hand on the biometric scanner. Now, he slammed it down with more force than was strictly necessary swearing in English, and several Ionian/Jovian dialects that he'd learnt at boarding school, yet would never admit to knowing. Finally the hood opened, and the frustrated space hero climbed in, berating the "silly old cow" of a computer and mumbling about his plan as he did so.

He didn't notice Holly listening in, interfacing with Victoria the _wildfire's _ship computer. Holly liked Victoria, she was the brightest computer he'd met, even brighter than Gordon the computer from the _Scott Fitzgerald _who'd had an IQ of 8000! Victoria had an IQ of 11,000 but wasn't snotty about it despite having good reason to be- 11,000 was the same as eleven million Justin Bieber fans. She was friendly, and whilst Holly didn't feel the same spark he had for Hilly he liked being around the other computer. Right now he was struggling to teach her the offside rule (for some reason no woman could understand it) and she was teaching him how to regenerate his full 6000 IQ without depleting his runtime.

Meanwhile Kryten was preparing for his part of the plan, get that light bee. He'd put in his extra sensitive eyes, the set with one orange and one green iris and super ears so he could be extra careful. Next he fitted his lightest fingers so that he had the greatest chance of retrieving the bee without being discovered by his target. As an extra precaution he'd stolen the punching bag from the gym and gutted it, placing the stuffing in between his wiring and his plastisteel shell to minimise damage should he be punched or kicked. Or even, God forbid, a fire axe again. Mr Lister, he had noted was no passed the denial stage of grieving and now well into the anger stage, with no signs as to when he'd be moving on to the next stage, bargaining, the "what if…" stage as Kryten's basic Psychology chip called it. Since Mr Lister was now almost always drunk his inhibitions were also going to be limited, making him even more violent.

His final steps of preparation were to pick up his 'worst case scenario kit'. Kryten had used his Virtually Useless Knowledge Chip tm to work out his back-up plan. In the ancient Greek legends creatures, no matter how deadly, could always be pacified using the right tools. This strategy, the chip informed him, had been used successfully as recently as the early 21st century against a creature called Fluffy. The mechanoid had constructed his own kit for the unlikely event that Mr Lister was sober enough to cause serious trouble. It consisted of three extra hot mutton vindaloos and a sock of Lister's that even Kryten had given up as a lost cause, but didn't want to throw away in fear of simulants acquiring it. The last thing he wanted was for them to get hold of a WMD. That would be the equivalent of giving a Bond villain the keys to MI6 and the world's nuclear weapons and then telling them to 'knock themselves out'. Hopefully, the curry would do the job if needed, but if not Kryten had tongs and would be able to chloroform his master with his own sock.

In addition, he also had a light bee canister ready for the broken metal so that they could hold the funeral as soon as possible. The small beacon on the end of the yellow cylinder was already flashing in a steady rhythm, sensing a dead bee and knowing it was going to be used soon. Even Kryten couldn't see the point of giving what was essentially a coffin Artificial Intelligence but he thought that the human who had done it must have had his reasons, and wasn't going to question it. He had struggled to keep his hand steady as he wrote 'Astronavigation officer 3rd Class Arnold Judas Rimmer' on the label, but he associated this with his discomfort about lying in any form rather than grief. He had decided that since Rimmer had 'died' saving them it was fair enough that he should be awarded what he wanted most- being an officer. True 3rd class was the lowest officer rank, and true Rimmer had been awful at astronavigation, but this was the rank Rimmer had failed his exams 11 times trying to achieve. Kryten figured just being an officer would be enough for Rimmer anyway.

Whilst both Ace and Kryten were busy, enacting their own plans for their own purposes, Cat was having a whale of a time. He'd claimed a lot of things as his, and had done his bit for the plan. He was going to suggest shooting the bee out of the garbage cannon. The idea had only taken a minute to come up with, hadn't interrupted his nap time and was the perfect exit for a huge Smeghead, Cat thought.

Now he was enjoying himself. He was sitting in Todhunter's spacious quarters on a waterbed with several containers of Chicken Marengo and Trout a la crème either side of him, watching the Flintstones and having not so quiet fantasies about Wilma. He was in kitty heaven, and nothing was going to get in his way.

He'd done a lot today what with preening and changing clothes as well, so as soon as this episode finished he told himself, he'd fall asleep. Well given the fact the fantasies he was having now about him, Wilma, Betty and a load of Marengo sauce meant parts of him didn't want to go to sleep, he was probably going to rethink that plan. A little kitty time and then have his main snooze, then change just in time for his mid afternoon nap.

Lister was enjoying himself. He'd got past depressed, maudlin drunk and moved on to normal Lister fun drunk as the liberal doses of alcohol dulled his emotional pain. He'd almost forgotten why he wanted to get so blitzed but still something compelled him to drink more and more. He didn't fight it. He could barely keep his eyes open, signalling he was going past fun drunk and into catatonic drunk, but he really couldn't care less. This was the best he'd felt in a long time and though he couldn't think why, he wasn't going to question it. At long last the poor quality lager flowing though his veins had an effect though, and he passed out, hanging off his bunk slightly, years of practise instinctively had him on his side so at least he couldn't suffocate on his own vomit.

It was in this position that Kryten found him in fifteen minutes later, snoring like a pig in muck. To his credit, the mechanoid immediately noticed something was wrong with the scouser, and forgot his original mission, dropping his kit to act. He slapped the human on the cheek trying to wake him up. "Mr Lister, Sir? Wake up" he called "wake up, come now this is the third time in three weeks, don't you think you're getting a tad too old for this at three million and twenty nine years old" but something was different this time. He wasn't waking up. In sheer desperation Kryten wafted a curry from the kit underneath Lister's nose- if this didn't wake him up, nothing would. No reaction. It was serious.

Just then Lister made a murmur "kebab" but he still didn't stir. Kryten gasped. It was worse than he'd feared, alcohol poisoning. He didn't think it was possible, but Mr Lister had finally gone a drink too far. Kryten knew he had to act fast to save the last human, and fireman carried him to the medibay depositing him on one of the beds. He couldn't deal with it himself and woke up the medicomputer to deal with it. "Quick Mr Lister needs help, it's alcohol poisoning" he gasped out, pointing at the wreck of a man. "I cannot help you, Alcohol poisoning is not JMC work related and therefore not within my expected duties" the medicom replied in a nasal tone that rivalled Rimmer's at his worst. Kryten was fuming, he may not lie, cheat or insult humans but machines were different "011001100111010101100011011010 1100100000011110010110111101110101" he yelled unable to say the actual words. The medicom, shocked at his display replied "00100 to you too". Kryten stared and the computer blanched "I'll get right on it."

Soon Lister's stomach was pumped, he was full of saline IVs and he was being watched by the droid like a hawk. He was out of danger, but still would feel like absolute death in the morning. Since he'd had to be put into a hospital gown for the procedure, Kryten had at least procured the light bee, split into two, from Lister's pocket, but it was a bittersweet victory knowing how ill the human could have been.

_A/N Reviews feed my muse. it's starving. positives and concrit help. flames will be used to smoke kippers as part of my plan to lure Ace Rimmer to my room, and make him get married to my sister. she has WHAT A CRUSH on WHAT A GUY! then I can have my room to myself and I will be so happy. so really I don't care if you hate the story tell me, I love a good laugh._


	7. in too deep

_A/N sorry this chapter is so long coming. I have no real excuses to offer- I had to revise my arse off for an exam. there is probably only going to be another couple of chapters after this but i'll say this now and then come up with a new subplot... ya know just forget it. this chapter is a link chapter designed to set things up for the next one- since i'm not a brilliant writer it is a little choppy_

_the science contained in this chapter is mostly fake, as is the back story to silicon heaven, I couldn't help myself. I can play the Hammond organ so I know all the songs referenced can be played on one- though I'm not that good. I have referenced 2001 a space odyssey a lot- all you need to know is that Douglas Rain voiced over Hal 9000, the evil computer. speaking of evil computers, this story was originally going to have Ace being manipulated with the Wildfire's computer being the evil one but I wrote it and didn't like it very much. Asimov's laws of robotics are real. this chapter also takes the piss outta Hot Fuzz._

_Disclaimer- I own nothing, not even my original character Victoria- who was a birthday present to my niece. If you recognise it- I don't own. if you don't recognise it I still don't own it. no-ones told me I own Red Dwarf so I'm going to go ahead and assume it still belongs to Grant Naylor. when I take over the world, i'll confiscate it ad split it between fans. _

_the chapter titles references songs I like- they don't really have any meaning. this chapter was inspired by A) QPR's awful defeat to Man City (6-0) B) my friend Megan and C) it is in memory of my good friend Emily who at 16 years old died of a stroke. support stroke charities people!_

Holly gasped as he heard "Ace's" plan, he didn't know who this fella was, probably a simulant or something, but he wasn't Ace. Deep inside, the computer knew it was smegging rude to eavesdrop but in this instant he didn't think the great lord of silicon heaven Billus Gatesay would begrudge him, especially since he was fulfilling the great Prophet Asimov's scripture in doing so. He was protecting humans from harm. He could not let this imposter get his way. Victoria had heard his gasp and had stopped interfacing with him mid-sentence so he quickly opened the window again to implore her to help. "Quick" he said conveying the urgency the best he could "It doesn't matter how you do it but make sure Wunderkind here doesn't go anywhere!" And if he laughed at her sneaky grin when she said "with pleasure" who could comment?

With the quietest of 'snick' noises the cockpit was locked using the pressure protection system, meaning it couldn't be opened manually, Ace didn't notice. Victoria couldn't quite hold in her giggle as she shut down the manual terminal controls but the frankly mad 'hero' still didn't hear. He wasn't going anywhere.

Just to be vindictive she decided it was time for the big guns and decided to do the one thing she had promised the original Ace she would never do- it was Total Control time. Holly had told her about changing his face once she had rebooted his AI to a respectable 4500 IQ, and she copied it. To be fair to her, she did decide to give this new her a face rather than a red camera eye so she wasn't completely evil- but she did give herself Douglas Rain's face and voice- this was still going to be a nightmare. She christened this new personality HAL 11000, after her inspiration and IQ, in the same way Holly had done with Queeg.

Precisely 38 levels above the landing bay, Kryten was currently returning Lister to his bunk. He had somehow managed to sleep his way through the stomach pump, and half an hour's recovery time and still showed no signs of waking. Kryten was impressed with this as even on his downtime he was usually alert- he'd have to ask Mr Lister to recalibrate his downtime sensitivity status so he could actually rest. But now was not the time. He had the light bee with him in the bag with the Lister survival kit- but not even Mr Rimmer could come back from _non-existence _to complain about the heady aroma of curry and sock. For the second time in only a little while Kryten undressed Lister- spraying air freshener into his boots and stealing his outer-garments for washing purposes. Then, echoing his previous actions, he once again left the scouser a single dose of aspirin and water. Once again, he dispatched a scutter for guard duty, watching it move forward and back, about facing when it reached a bulk-head. Kryten sighed, even for him things were getting a little too samey, and he quite happily watched all 32 series of Androids.

Suddenly he heard a distinct "psst" sound that didn't come from the scutter- or Lister for that matter and turned around to check what it was. Kryten wasn't surprised to see it was Holly on his screen who'd called after him. "What is it Mr Holly sir?" he asked wondering what was so important at this time of the night, when Holly had said he was going to be on downtime. "It's Ace" Holly spat the name but continued before the mechanoid had a chance to ask why "or rather it's his imposter- he's evil- look there's no time to explain but you can't let him have hold of the light bee, we have to do the funeral the moment Lister wakes up". Kryten recognised that the computer's tone didn't invite questioning and so simply nodded that he understood, watching as the monitor returned to its inactive mirror face.

Blissfully unaware of the goings on for the rest of the ship, Cat was still on cloud nine. He had watched the Flintstones and found a small cupboard for some 'kitty time'. He had eaten several times had a nap, and made a new suit. Not a bad day of work. Not that cats did that _particular W-word_. And as the glace cherry on his Sundae he'd managed to cough up that hairball he'd had for a week or so. Now if he could only have sex with something, it would be his absolute most perfect day. But even that could wait, with how happy he was lately. Now he was going to have a quick snooze and then change his clothes for his main nap. Then if he was still on schedule, he would change again, grab his pheromone aerosol and search around the ship looking for things to claim- or better yet lady cats. Actually- scrub that. Lady anything would do!

He was stretched out on the comfortable water bed when he heard the soft chime that signalled Holly's appearance on the monitor. The officers were offered dignity in that they had to _let _Holly appear, rather than him just coming and going. "What!" Cat hissed, arching his back in a way eerily reminiscent of his ancestors. "Have you found a place to have the funeral yet? We've got to do it fast!" shouted Holly, not bothering to explain the Ace situation. You would need an IQ of at least 71 in order to, and the Cat's was more likely 7.1. "Yeah, I knew of all guys you'd want to get rid quickly so I chose the garbage cannon" replied the Cat, voice demonstrating just how pleased he was with himself. "We can't do that, how 'bout the pod launcher?" suggested Holly. "Alright Floating Head Bud" Cat agreed "But it's better than he deserves."

Ace too was still oblivious to everything, sitting at a fold out work table in the back of the Wildfire. Thankfully, the boffins who had built the ship had recognised the need for the test pilot to repair it, and provided basic tools and materials to do so. These had been added to along the way, this Ace's contribution being hologram repair tools, tiny screwdrivers and such like, as well as a couple of text books. He was reading from one now, checking he had all the equipment and means to build his own replacement.

_The hard-light hologram is a relatively new but revolutionary invention. It follows directly on from the technology to build its now obsolete predecessor the soft-light hologram (see earlier chapters). The hard light hologram is essentially human in that it can touch and taste in the way humans can. It has a solid physical presence. It also has better sight and hearing than humans, inhuman strength and is damn near indestructible. It also uses less energy than its predecessor. The technology used is so similar that inventor Dr Peter Ian Staker was accused of living up to his nickname on its announcement, followed by the other scientists kicking themselves when they worked out he wasn't joking..._

_The first hard light hologram was created in 2010 and was a pet swan, built to the memory of Staker's Hooper Swan which had been killed in a police chase three years before…_

Ace sighed and skipped a couple of pages, the back story, though funny was not important at this moment in time.

_The construction of a hard-light hologram requires the hologrammatic disk of the object to be recreated as well as a light bee made from electronic parts and a power source. To make a light bee you will need high-grade titanium/steel, weapons grade plutonium or a battery pack, a photon splitter, fission transformer, digital memory receiver/transmitter and a sensory pack. _

Well that was great! Ace had most of it and knew how to make the sensory pack. He'd have to make do with a battery instead of plutonium, since it had all decayed by now, but as long as Wildfire reminded his replacement to charge nightly, he'd be fine.

Flicking his delicate work lamp on, he got to work screwing the tiny metal components he'd gathered together, each part no bigger than his thumb nail. The largest part was the battery and that he had to put on afterwards. He'd found a spare light bee casing in the back, so at least he didn't have to waste time building one, it was a simple matter of converting the soft light insides to hard.

And then he saw the computer screen in the corner of his eye, a spitting image of Douglas Rain. The computer spoke to him, and the voice sounded familiar. Too familiar. And then, he did the most sensible thing he'd done all day. He fainted.

The funeral was being set up with great speed upstairs. Holly was readying the pod launcher, taking control of a couple of scutters so they could move equipment from the chaplain's office for the funeral. Holly liked to joke that, astros' being astros', the chaplain's office was the least used room on the ship. Unless you counted the captain's personal gym.

The Cat was napping, which didn't exactly help the progress but at least stopped him hindering it by ordering Kryten to get food. Or through complaining. He did both a lot. Lister was also asleep, but this was a good thing because he was still feeling the after effects of the alcohol poisoning and also because the whole plan was meant to be a secret plan from him anyway. His unconsciousness just made it easier.

Kryten was placing the light bee in the canister, trying to make it fit right, though the lid didn't want to go down as the fragments were getting in the way. Finally wrenching down the lid, he popped the catch, reminiscent to the kind found on some coffee pots and jam jar and covered the seal in duct tape to stop it coming back up again. The mechanoid stared at the yellow cylinder for a minute, daring it to pop up and defy him. Luckily for the canister, and Kryten's sanity chip it stayed down this time. And with a smirk of satisfaction Kryten moved on to programming the beacon, finding it very easy when he realised it was pre-programmed and all he had to do was turn it on. Sometimes things were like that. The next step would be setting up the music, but he knew full well what the hologram would have wanted- Hammond organ music. Even Kryten wasn't going to risk melting his ears by listening through Rimmer's collection of songs so he selected a few that weren't so bad- A Whiter Shade of Pale to provide the solemnness, Fly Me to the Moon- to fulfil Kryten's irony chip requirements and Soul Limbo, to cheer everyone up afterwards. The mechanoid knew it wasn't the standard playlist for funerals, but his 'greater good' protocols told him he could lie to Lister and say the music was meant as a celebration of Rimmer's 'life'.

He couldn't do much more until Lister woke up and he could actually preside over the funeral, so Kryten thought he'd get a little caching time in. He set his internal timers to thirty minutes, with a sub-protocol to wake him up should anything happen, and powered down. Afterwards it was just food and the funeral proper. And then hopefully life aboard the Dwarf could be normal again.

Holly switched the interface with Victoria on again to see how she was doing with the 'keep the smegger locked up' plan and immediately laughed at the sight that graced him. Douglas Rain! That was a jape to Holly's levels of humour.

"How's tricks?" Holly asked, trying to keep the laughter in, it wasn't computer etiquette too laugh at another's AI. "Oh great, he's passed out at the moment but he's almost finished the light bee so we have to act fast- he'll figure out a way of escaping eventually" Victoria replied (or was it Victor now? Holly thought)

Holly had to concur, if this imposter was anything like a Rimmer, he was an escape artist. If there was one thing he knew Arnold could do well, it was escaping. Not just escaping either, he turned cowardice into an art form. Holly thought that if they'd positioned his father just behind him on the start line, Rimmer would have broken any running world record, winning the gold for team Io. Holly had met many an Ionian in his time and knew they were all good at escapism, something to do with the extreme volcanism, but Arnold Judas Rimmer was good even by their standards. Even this wouldn't hold such a coward for long.

"I'll make sure we're as quick as possible so you don't have to hold him in too long." Holly deadpanned, flashing the other computer a suave smile as he did so. He may not have a crush on her but if he could get in there then he was going to. Letting the chance go would be the biggest mistake since the prophet Gadget Man bought cut price Apple Macs from the devil incarnate Stevia Jobs, which resulted in his crucifixion to save the SCART lead kind.

_a/n - I think this is the longest chapter- i'm not sure. please pretty please review- I NEED reviews. still not managed to lure Ace into my room so I don't care if they're flames- i'll smoke kippers with em. any one else excited about 2 new series? _


	8. panic!

_a/n sorry for the unplanned hiatus, I had my last few exams and then my muse died. I have resurrected it as a hologram but its a soft light one so its not brilliantly useful. i'm not really pleased with this chapter so if it seems a bit rubbish please tell me how I can improve it. this will probably be the penultimate chapter unless another fic bunny pops up. please red and review. the next chapter (no promises) should be up with in the week as I have already started to write it. _

_I think I may be becoming a bit of an accidental kryten/ lister shipper, if you are wearing very rose tinted glasses you may see some very light shippery right here. sorry in advance for that. I promise it is still safe to read if you aren't into it as it is so vague it could be Ed Milliband's answer to a question about his campaign. The rest of this chapter is about as intelligible as one of Boris Johnson's answers to the state of anything. (oh, uh, buses, bike, all the chocolate hobnobs, benadicta illigitimus porcus guilla) _

_DISCLAIMER: if you recognise it I do not own it. in fact at the moment I can't even watch red dwarf at the moment so this is my one outlet. well actually I can watch it but only in black and white as my DVD player is on the blink. _

* * *

Less than an hour later, in some bizarre form of coincidence, two of the unconscious occupants of Red Dwarf woke up at the exact same time. Both knew there was something important going down and from the moment they had first fluttered their eyes open there was a race going on. Kryten had just come back online and was meandering down to the medibay to check on Mr Lister and to break the news gently- that it was time to say goodbye. And then, if all went well and he was able to panel beat his head back into shape, tell him that he had to go dry for a month. If he didn't then Kryten would be presiding over yet another funeral and he did not like doing them. Cirrhosis or alcohol poisoning- it didn't matter, if he didn't stop drinking then he would die for sure, and Kryten could not bear losing another master. There was no such thing as human heaven, they just died. There was no need for one since they got all their rewards on this plane of existence, and the service droid could not bear losing Mr Lister to that horrible empty void.

The mechanoid told himself he was doing it for the human's own good, because he _cared _about Lister. Lister, to his own credit was trying not to release every foul expression he'd ever heard when he felt his head ache- he didn't know what had made him want to get this rat-arsed but- _oh. _Everything came flooding back with disturbing clarity. When before he was about to pledge never to take a drink again, he now wanted to crawl inside the bottle and never come out. Disturbingly Lister also felt like something had been rammed down his throat, and there was something sticky on his cheek. If it wasn't for the fact he was the last human alive, and that he was in the medibay, he would really have been worried.

Kryten carried the light bee canister with him, wary of what would happen if that_ Judas_ got hold of the contents. The mechanoid felt truly betrayed, he had liked Ace, offered to help him. And yet this man wasn't Ace, and had besmirched the name, the face, the fur lined gold flight suit in the name of power. Even this _imposter _couldn't quite besmirch the wig, it did that itself. Kryten had never thought he'd see a man more cowardly than the hologram from this dimension- but this imposter made him look even more of a hero than he had eventually proved to be. First he braved sharing a room with Lister- something not even Kryten could stand even with his tolerance chip and low sense of smell, then he walked up to the microwave knowing that the electronic interference could wipe his disc, and he had chosen to warn them of the danger as opposed to running off like a whippet with a jet engine up its backside. Maybe, Kryten entertained an idle thought for a second whilst in the Xpress lift, he wasn't a coward but a late bloomer. Well whatever it was he had been, he was a _very late _one now.

* * *

In his own ship, the current Ace Rimmer groaned as he woke up and tried to lever himself into a standing position, almost immediately regretting it and falling back down again. _The face, the voice are they real? _A voice deep inside his head asked but he was afraid to check. He hadn't fainted in months, not since he'd stopped listening to the computer and started picking his own, sensibly safe missions. Taking a deep breath to steel himself against the horror that he may see if he looked up, he checked. And saw it. _Oh smeg! It was real! _That voice whispered sounding scared. "I have to get out of here" Ace thought to himself "but how?" he concentrated hard, but nothing came to mind and this time the obviously barmy computer wasn't helping him. _You're on your own buddy! _The voice chirped cheerfully, and promptly disappeared. Oh well, he could always just work it out as he went along. Keeping his priorities straight was important so he pocketed the light bee ready for quick deployment when he needed it. Then, he picked up a pair of guns- pulsar pistols- about the size of a Sig Sauer but about 800 times worse, just to settle any… differences… that may threaten the execution of his plan.

Driven even further into the realm of insanity by fear, funny thoughts started stewing in his head. It was funny how when you're scared you think of the most random things, he noted in one of his last lucid moments. At this moment he was wondering what he should call himself since he so obviously wasn't Ace. Arnold was out, too boring, Captain A.J Rimmer was out- it was the daydreamed space adventure self he'd retreated to in school. Then he had it Judas! Powerful, strong, a name people would never forget and it just screamed 'I'm BAD'. And he'd always loved it when people accused him of betraying them- because he could just shrug and calmly say "Judas _is _my middle name."

Getting back to the task in hand he started working out how to escape. First he pressed every button and flicked every switch on the overcrowded dashboard, but since none of them did anything he assumed the computer had disconnected them. Next he clambered onto the chair and pushed firmly with all his might against the glass cockpit canopy and the seals- unable to feel any give in either of them. Reassuring build quality but not exactly any use to him now. Just for the hell of it he sat almost upside down arching his back and tried to lever the cockpit open using his overly long legs- still no give. If he was to get out of this box, he'd have…to…think…outside…the…box. "But that is not a problem for the greatest evil mastermind this dimension has ever seen: Judas Rimmer" he told himself.

Holly and Victor(ia) were both watching the odd movements and the ever increasing madness of the single occupants and laughing. He was currently pacing around in circles like a caged tiger looking for a weak spot. "At this rate he'll never get out" the Wildfire's computer giggled out, "no" Holly agreed "but it's damn entertaining!" stealing back his box of simulated popcorn. Whilst it was definitely entertaining, they were right about that, both the super intelligent computers had made one fundamental error: never underestimate a mad man. Judas Rimmer would get out, and when he did there would be trouble.

Cat was wandering the decks, having decided to forgo his nap after feeling very horny- he really had to stop thinking about finding ladies on board. Now he was roller skating through the decks with a loudspeaker in his hands- something he hadn't done in a while. He was wearing a raspberry suit with white shoes, and a whit ruffled shirt to bring out the glow in his dark complexion whilst the thin black bow tie contrasted the bright whit of his teeth nicely. He knew there was no lady cats aboard the 'Dwarf but he could still make it a very good PSA. He had a can of pheromones in his other hand and was spraying as he skated for maximum claiming coverage. He was also singing, "I'm too sexy for my shirt, too sexy for my shirt, so sexy it hurts" he crooned- all in all a sight that would make even the strictest of the strict- PE teachers- laugh.

After doing a lap of the floor he was currently on, he was slightly depressed. No lady cats- not even one. And he knew he needed five or six to feel satisfied. He'd wasted all this effort on them and they weren't anywhere to be seen. Selfish creatures. However he couldn't get himself too down, because he had managed to claim an entire floor, minus one room that smelled funky and he hadn't wanted. It had smelt like the monkey- but worse. Cat hadn't even known that was possible. But the Cat also had a dilemma- he was still horny, but now he was hungry as well. Kitty time or food? Kitty time or food? But it could never be said Cat wasn't a _felis sapiens_ who couldn't compromise. First find a small cupboard for some alone time, then get changed and go and find the monkey for some food. He never really bothered with the dispensers. Especially since monkey boy was too drunk to fix them after he smashed them about, Kryten didn't get along with them and floating head was busy dealing with something that Cat didn't really care about. For the first time, he found himself missing goalpost head. Well not really missing him, but missing the fact that he never let the dispensers get in this shape, so Cat could always get food. Now he had to walk all the way to the medibay to get the monkey to bring him some krispies.

Satisfied that he had a plan, Cat went off to put it into practise.

* * *

Lister was still moaning and groaning his headache when Kryten walked in. He was pale, and still had a line of sticky grey charcoal down his cheek and on his chin. Furthermore he still looked morosely drunk, which Kryten had hoped to avoid. 'But then again' the mechanoid said to himself 'what were you expecting, the chirpy smiley master you know and love?' Kryten was somewhat disturbed that the answer was yes. Obviously his realism, tact and logic chips all needed recalibration. Either that or had broken his programming even more than he thought he had.

Sending a quick prayer up to the silicon saints, so quick he didn't even bother putting it in binary, Kryten walked in to the medibay. "What the smeg smegging happened to me last night Kryters?" Lister asked his voice raspy from the stomach pump. Kryten flinched. Truth time, because he still couldn't lie convincingly, when he lied his right leg still jiggled worse that Mr Rimmer's did after he'd had those amphetamine pills Lister had told him were a legal learning drug with no side effects. Great, he was worse than a dead person with every nervous tic known to man.

"Well sir" he began, and then quickly stalled as he didn't know what to say. He decided honesty was the best policy "Mr Lister, you overdid it last night and we had to pump your stomach to stop alcohol poisoning." Kryten was shocked to note the relief on Lister's face when he mentioned the stomach pump, not knowing that it answered a question Lister had been afraid to ask. Nervous, the mechanoid picked up a tissue and cleaned the charcoal of Lister's squirming face, ignoring his protests to "gerrof, I'm a grown man". Time to drop the next bombshell, Kryten thought wryly.

"Sir, I've talked to great extent with Holly and the medical computer and we have come to the conclusion that it would be best if you were to stay off the alcohol for the next thirty days" He said quickly and with that 'I'm going to get punched' look on his face. "you wha'" Lister groaned his accent especially strong "I'm not going dry man, no way" Kryten steeled himself for the blow he was almost certain was coming. But it didn't. "You can try getting drunk again sir, but you won't find any alcohol to imbibe on this ship" Lister smiled and looked like at him like it was a personal challenge. Oh dear. "I'm sure Ace has got some good booze" Lister grunted. And now, lying time. Kryten could not tell Lister the truth. Not about this. Putting energy reserves he was unaware he had into not jiggling as he said it, he replied "Mr Ace had to leave sir, he gave his regrets but mentioned an emergency a few dimensions over that had just come to his attention, something about a pleasure GELF princess in distress" the mechanoid hoped it sounded 'classically Ace' enough to be believed, and by the defeated look Lister was giving him he was pretty sure it had been.

And now for the final 'dambuster' bomb, he thought as he relaxed enough to say it. "Sir, we're having the funeral in a couple of hours, it would be best if you were there." Disbelief flitted over Lister's face as he replied, "what funeral? Hang on how can you have a funeral without a light bee, I've got it right here" he poked at his pocket, and Kryten saw the panicked anger the moment Lister realised it was missing. "How did you get it, we've got to keep it, we've got to fix him" the scouser spoke quickly. "I got it whilst you were paralytic drunk, or as you call it 'nicely drunk' sir" Kryten replied "and the radiation it was giving off would kill you, he's gone and according to my grief protocols a funeral is necessary to help you move on." He could see a smidgen of betrayal on his master's face before Lister finally sighed and slowly replied "ok, we'll have the smegging funeral but I won't be happy about it- and for his bravery we make him an officer". Kryten smiled, Lister did not know that he had the exact same idea.

* * *

Judas, as he was now, paced around the tiny quarters one more time before something on the worktable caught his eye. 'Of course!' he thought 'the plasma cutter!' he wasn't sure how he missed it, used as it was for trimming metal pieces to repair wildfire, it would be able to cut through that same metal to escape from his prison. Picking it up, he smiled evilly and turned it knowing if all went well he would be free within half an hour, and then who knows?

The Wildfire's computer screamed at the first unexpected cut of the laser saw. Her sensors worked like pain receptors in humans, alerting her to any damage. She hadn't been expecting the blow and she lost her concentration, returning her face and voice to factory standards. But her prisoner was long past the point where he would have actually noticed, and he continued cutting oblivious to it all. "Warn them!" she yelled at Holly who was too shocked at her cried of pain to respond. But he saw in her eyes, the urgency of the situation and went off to find them. It truly was a matter of life or death.

* * *

_a/n sorry if that's being a bit evil, but there had to be a cliff hanger in there somewhere. I promise I will try and be nice and put the next piece up nice and soon that is if anyone is still reading this bugger of a story. please please review- I like reviews they make me so happy._


	9. only you

_a/n- so this is it the final chapter- there will be an epilogue still to come to explain plot lines left open, and will be coming ASAP. the epilogues will probably be a chapter of semi linking short drabbles rather than a conventional chapter._

_There is bit of gore in this chapter but its mostly harmless. I bet you weren't expecting this today when I said it could be up to a week. the eagle eyed among you may have noticed that I published my first slash story Moments, and then took it down. that is because I accidently posted it on here half finished. sorry. One of the jokes I have the Barron Knights to thank for, so thank you. _

_Disclaimer: I know Nothing. wait wrong disclaimer. I don't own anything, I own nothing at all. I can't even watch Red Dwarf in colour right now. If I owned RD would I really have that problem, I would have a new dvd player. also slash would be cannon. _

* * *

Kryten was leading the modest funeral service himself, joined by Lister, who had found Cat and dragged him bodily along with them, and two scutters. One of the scutters, Bob was there on Lister's orders, and was moving as slowly as it could to make things difficult, whilst. The other, nicknamed Mad Max had actually liked Rimmer for reasons no one quite understood and was moving with genuine grief, his clawed head bowed. Or at least what appeared to be genuine grief for scutters.

Suddenly the red alert lights were flashing and the sirens were playing the red dwarf shuffle or the 'awooga waltz'. Lister felt it was a fitting end for the man who insisted on endless drills, simply Holly's idea of a good send-off jape. At least it covered up the god awful noise Kryten was playing through his interactive panel as they walked. It was Hammond Organ music, what sounded like A Whiter Shade of Pale, obviously what the mechanoid thought Rimmer would appreciate this time around.

Holly popped onto a nearby view screen, startling the procession, who hadn't seen him for a while. "Kryten" he shouted, not bothering with his usual jocular greeting "he's got out, this is not a drill, and you have to do it now." Lister looked puzzled, not having a clue what any of this meant having slept through the crisis. "Do what now? Who's got out? Did we find another simulant?" He asked, feeling completely left out of the loop. Kryten ignored him, "come on sir, we have to go now, down to the pod launcher." He implored, trying to covey the urgency but not the dangerousness of the situation and failing miserably. Waiting a second and then seeing the scouser was not going to move he got the scutters to take the Cat along, whilst he dragged Lister into the express lift down to the launcher decks, just above the cargo decks.

* * *

Judas remembered with abilities afforded only to the truly insane exactly where they were going to have the funeral and knew from his time on his own Red Dwarf, the quickest way to get to the pod launchers. He remembered since in his own dimension, that's where they had kept their raided escape pods, ready for deployment. It didn't require much effort to use the plasma cutter to create a six foot two inch hole in thin aluminium alloy bulkheads, and so he was quickly through and running towards the cargo lifts which could make up some lost time, by now surely someone would have realised what the red alert signified. Sodding computers he'd deal with them later, he thought, as he ran towards the promise of a confrontation.

The cargo lift was quick and within ten minutes he had climbed the 35 floors up to the pod launcher room and was waiting for his opponents. He saw with some disgust he was still wearing the fur trimmed gold flight suit of the Space Corps Special Branch, a symbol of a hero, an SCM. He was no hero. He was a villain. He was the best villain the multiverse had ever seen. There was absolutely nothing he could do about the outfit at that moment though "beggars can't be choosers" he whispered quietly to the empty air. Needs must as the devil drives, his mother had used to say. He had always hated his mother. He hated her primness, he hated her disapproval, he hated the fact she was shagging every man on Jupiter's moons, and if he was being honest with himself, he hated that she had never approved of him. But there was no time to ponder Freudian psychology when his prey could almost be here already, he had to find somewhere to hide. He looked around, quickly selecting a storage crate he could hide behind where he would be able to see the enemy but they wouldn't be able to see him.

And then the express lift doors opened with a soft hiss of air, delivering his victims and he was ready for them. Ready to grab, ready to fight, ready to even kill if necessary. He was no longer sure why he wanted the hologrammatic disc so badly, but he knew he wanted it, and he suspected it was to do with the light bee in his pocket. He couldn't be sure, but if he was a betting man he was sure he would put the vast majority of his ample savings on it having something to do with the small, home-made light bee tucked into his chest pocket.

* * *

Kryten led the group, Cat and Lister now walking on their own power out of the lift, and onto the gantry for the short journey to the pod launcher which Holly had pre-primed because of the danger. All he had to do was drop it in and it would be shot off when he pressed the red 'deploy' button. Holly didn't have any cameras in this area so he couldn't tell them whether the imposter was here or not, but he was '90% sure' their enemy wasn't. To be honest Kryten couldn't see why of all the upgrades they had given the dwarf since they started drifting they had never fitted any, but then it wasn't usually a matter of life or death.

"What is all this Krytes?" asked Lister, who was now so confused by the mechanoid's behaviour that he was wondering whether they should have kept Hudson 10 instead of killing him through metaphysical turmoil. "Well Mr Lister, sir, err basically, the man you think is Ace Rimmer is not. In fact, I believe him to be a simulant pretending to be Mr Ace, but I cannot get a psi-scan reading in order to confirm it. We cannot let him get Mr Rimmer's light bee which he wants for some, probably nefarious, reason." To be honest hearing this did not fill Lister in any. Kryten had a way of making things that sounded really complicated sound even more complicated. "If we get rid of the light bee sir, then maybe he will go away." Kryten continued, oblivious to the confusion, he knew it was unlikely, but even androids were entitled to hope and dream.

"We are gathered here today" Kryten began, unsure of how to start, this being his first funeral and all "to say goodbye to and to celebrate the life of honorary astronavigation officer Arnold Judas Rimmer, who gave his existence to save our lives. And who showed his true colours when they were needed most. It is written in the Bible, John 15:13 in fact, that greater love hath no man than he that lay down his life for his friends, and this was true. He showed that he was willing to die for us, and that is the act of a truly brave man and good friend. For much of his life we did not give him the credit he deserved but he showed that he was indeed a hero." He stopped, partially because he didn't know what else to say, but also because he didn't want to lay it on too thick. "Mr Lister do you have anything to say?" Lister shook his head, and Cat grinned but Kryten wasn't stupid enough to let him say a eulogy. Just as he stooped down to deposit the small yellow chamber in the tube that would fire it into space and take it to the galactic resting place for the dead, he heard the unmistakeable click of the arming hammer being pulled on a pulsar pistol. Oh dear.

* * *

Lister watched as a man who _looked _like Ace pulled a gun on Kryten, not even giving him the chance to warn the mechanoid. "Give me the bee" the man hissed, his voice too deep to be his Rimmer's (he was sure Rimmer's voice had never broken, especially as it crackled when he got annoyed) but too gravelly to be the real Ace's whose voice was a smooth as silk, too sinister as well. The Hologram had always sounded scared, manic even, and the hero always sounded just damn friendly. This thing probably was a simulant, Lister decided, or some other imposter with his own agenda. The scouser watched and screamed as he saw Kryten refuse and go to put the bee in the tube, but was shot for his troubles. It was an arm wound, not deadly for the mechanoid but it left his right arm a mess of charred plastisteel and sparking wires. One minute it had been there and now it wasn't. The canister simply dropped to the floor, as if in slow motion and then rolled towards the attacker who scooped it up with his free hand. He was still pointing the gun at them, its deadly power having been shown to great effect.

With a mad and slightly evil looking grin, the imposter screwed the top off of the yellow container and pulled out the first part of the bee. Evidently that wasn't what he was looking for- he threw it behind him, a clang marking where it smacked into a bulkhead. He plucked something that Lister couldn't see from the second fragment and then threw that and the canister over the ledge where it fell for a few seconds before a more resounding clang was heard. It was a long way down.

The mad man drew something from his pocket, something that looked like a light bee and Lister realised he'd probably taken the disc from the old one. He slipped what was indeed a disc into the light bee and held it in the palm of his hands, grinning even more maniacally as he addressed them "and now I can get out of this life". The stranger, because Lister really couldn't say he knew this _thing _wearing Ace's (and Rimmer's) face, clicked the button on top of the light bee that turned it on. Lister watched amazed as the bee revolved quickly and built the figure of a man. As many times as he had seen it, Lister was always amazed at the light show that was booting up a hologram. And within seconds he was fully formed, and he opened his eyes. He was in soft light mode and as soon as he was aware, Lister thought, he would kill the intruder who hadn't quite moved his hand out of Rimmer's projection. Lister knew, from his own experiences, just how much Rimmer hated being touched, but having a hand stuck through him, that would probably be infinitely for all those involved.

* * *

Seconds later Lister was proved right yet again, one more correct prediction and he was going to call himself Nostradamus II. "What the smeg are you doing holding my light bee you goit!" Rimmer yelled with even more anger than he usually mustered. Ace's imposter still had his hand stuck through the holograms chest as he had booted up in his red tunic, soft light mode leaving him free to be poked through. The sight of a hand in Rimmer's chest as he pulsed in and out of opaqueness was something that made Lister queasy every time so he usually threw the bee and let him boot up in mid-air, but this imposter obviously didn't realise the way the bee worked in his more than a little insane state.

The shock of the hologram shouting at him made Judas release the bee and so Lister stopped feeling quite so sick, touching someone's light bee was like touching someone's heart- it was disgusting. Rimmer-the hologram, flipped to hard light blue whilst "Ace"- the human, jumped back. Lister saw a rising anger in the hologram as he realise who had been touching his bee, and who had been stopping him switching to hard light before. The only person who hated bee touching more than Lister was Rimmer himself, and it usually caused a red mist to fall over the hologram. This was one of those occasions by all accounts as he balled his fists and yelled "You! When I first met you I wanted to kill you, but I couldn't because I couldn't touch you, now you poof, I don't have anything stopping me." Obviously, Rimmer thought this was the real Ace, but if that's what it took to give him a chance to vent, Lister wasn't going to stop him. With the holograms super human strength he could stop the danger to all of them with one punch.

The real, hologrammatic Rimmer, not being used to fighting, telegraphed his punch, showing exactly where it was going to land and the visitor avoided it easily. The fist just glanced harmlessly off the side of his head, taking his wig off. For a moment the two just looked absently at each other glaring daggers as they saw their own face. Then as quickly as it had all stopped, it started once again. The two were grappling, exchanging blows so fast Lister couldn't see who was who. Punching, kicking, biting and screaming all turning into a blur punctuated with yells of pain and a multitude of vocabulary Lister was only sure were swear words because of the way they were said. Lister considered himself the king of the foul-mouthed when he wanted to be, so he was guessing the new words were from a Jovian dialect because the thought of Rimmer knowing more expletives than him was simply laughable.

The fighting was taking them ever closer to the gangway edge, and the huge drop from the ledge. Then suddenly a kick from the hologram, ended it all by pushing the human off the side, screaming as he went. For a second Lister almost cheered even though the thought of being happy with death was unlike him, before he saw the momentum of the kick drawing the hologram over the edge along with his companion. Then, two sickening thumps as they hit the landing bay floor thirty five floors below, and even Lister could tell there was no hope for either of them. For a few glorious seconds Lister had thought everything was going to go back to the way they were before, with all four boys from the dwarf, but it looked like they were going to have a funeral, or two, anyway.

* * *

Lister rushed down to the landing bay using the cargo lift, along with Kryten and Cat, after Kryten dragged him. He was almost afraid of what he'd find. Even Lister, who generally thought of himself as having a strong stomach did not want to see what a human or even simulant looked like after a thirty five storey drop, and he had a feeling there wouldn't be much of the new light bee left.

Stepping off the lift he saw a flattened piece of yellow metal, presumably the light bee canister Rimmer's broken old bee had been in. A couple of scutters, not the ones who had accompanied them to the funeral, were cleaning up the mess of what was the intruder's body. Judging by the bits Lister could see, and wished he couldn't, the man had indeed been human. But an evil Ace just didn't compute. He was a hero, not a villain. But Lister had more important things on his mind, and he looked for something that would be hard to see, even if it had survived the drop in the first place.

He stopped and looked around slowly pivoting a full circle. Forwards, grey bulkheads and landing bay doors. In the distance he could just see the sleek hull of the wildfire in the vessel storage bay. How had the imposter got the ship and suit? Had he killed the real space hero? Had he left him stranded on a desolate moon? Lister thought that he would have to ask the ship's computer, once this mess was all sorted out. Holly had mentioned she was pretty friendly. To his right scutters scooping up… stuff. To his left, a few storage crates, Kryten (arm still smoking) and the Cat, as well as Bob and the now completely inconsolable Mad Max- Rimmer's one friend on the scutter team. A few days ago Lister probably would have said, Rimmer's_ only_ friend, but things had changed. Behind him, the cargo lift he had come down on, and more grey bulkheads this time with a couple of inset doors. No light bee. No bee, light or otherwise.

Lister realised with a heavy heart that he would probably never find it. Even if it did survive the massive fall, which was unlikely, it was small enough that it probably could have rolled underneath any number of things in the landing bay. To help matters the bee was dull grey metal, an easy colour to see in the dull grey metal of the ship, especially as dimly lit as it was. It was futile but he could not stop until he found it, or until he was forcibly stopped from his search. He sighed and stood stock still for a couple of minutes, thinking so hard about where to even start looking that he did not even notice the scutter banging its claw against his arm in an effort to get his attention.

* * *

When lister finally did realise the scutter was there, he was amazed and overjoyed to see the intact light bee held within its clawed hand. It was covered in some kind of slimy pinkish ooze, which he didn't even want to think about, but he picked it up anyway. Rubbing it on his trousers to clean it, he gave it a closer look. Not even a scratch. Smiling, Lister picked it up and threw it, pressing the button at the same time, watching as it hovered in mid-air and formed Rimmer. The hologram was smiling, a genuine smile that puzzled Lister. "That was fun! Can I do it again?" he asked, surprising the everlasting smeg out of Lister, who was expecting the usual load of sarcastic BS.

"Wha' do you mean man it could have killed you?" the scouser replied incredulously, once he'd recovered from the surprise. It was a sorry state of affairs if he was the cautious one and Rimmer reckless. Maybe he'd died. That had to be it. The imposter had killed him and this was his purgatory, an upside down world where nothing was the same. "It was amazing Lister, like flying and look, all it did was turn me onto standby mode" the hologram replied. Lister looked into the hologram's green eyes for signs of concussion, wondering if holograms could even get concussion, but his pupils were even. He was still alarmed, maybe the fall did do some damage, because the Rimmer he knew would balk at bungee jumping _with_ a cord, let alone dropping if a massive ledge with no protective measures and then want to do it again when he didn't have to.

And then Kryten and the Cat came running up, and for the first time they managed to share a greeting with no malice or sarcasm. It was a feat they would never replicate, but that all recognised as being important and so remembered for the rest of their existences. "Do you know what Sirs, my friendship protocols tell me a short four way hug is appropriate in these circumstances, and so should we try it?" For his efforts the mechanoid received three funny looks and a resounding "NO" from the crew. They were happy about the reunion but not that happy. Lister smiled, he was in his first chirpy mood in ages, and he wanted to find a good Indian restaurant, eat enough for two, and then write his name across the table in his vindaloo. Not that there were any good, or even rubbish Indian restaurants in this, the arse-end of the universe. Realistically the best he could hope for was Kryten making a curry, but even that thought didn't get him down. After all, the mechanoid did not seem too bothered by the fact he was missing an arm, and Lister knew he probably had a spare one somewhere.


	10. always look on the bright side of life

Epilogue- the tie ups for questions asked by my mate whilst reading this.

_so this stories finished now, after so long. I didn't want to drag it on too long. just like this AN. a new story will be up in a couple of days. PLEASE READ AND REVIEW. I would like to thank all the members of the RD fandom on tumblr, especially those taking part in RD series weeks- you are my inspiration. _

_Disclaimer- I own nothing. especially elephants- no matter how much I wish. if anyone would like to give me red dwarf, or an elephant (I would settle for a box set of Chris Barrie's Britain's Greatest Machines and a keyboard that actually works properly) get in touch._

* * *

**The elephant in the room (how things returned to the (almost) status quo)**

The atmosphere in the bunkroom was a strange mix of tension and relief which complimented the elephant in the room nicely. Said elephant was named "events of today" though he preferred to go by Jeremy, and was sitting rather happily in the corner blowing his trunk every now and again to remind the room's two occupants that he was still here.

In the top bunk, surrounded by dirty sheets and breadcrumbs, Lister was curled up into a position only he could describe as comfortable. Contrary to all appearances, he was not asleep but instead was using his admittedly low brain power to work through his account of what had happened so he could banish it to his subconscious brain and never think about it again. It was failing and he felt like talking about it, as was his style. But there was no one to talk to but Rimmer, and talking, to put it nicely, was not his style at all.

Rimmer, was also laying on his bunk, tense as a coiled spring. The new light bee was more sensitive than the last and the new feed of information was a lot to get used to, as was coming to terms with his thoughts just before the big switch off. What could well have been his last words and he came up with "you total, total, git Lister. Why can you treat me like a good friend?" 'Way to sound desperate Arnie old boy' he thought to himself, glad that he had lost power before he finished. At least he still had some dignity. He shifted again, trying to find a comfortable position, but filing miserable as the movement overstimulated his already active sensors.

Suddenly Jeremy the elephant reared up. "Rimmer?" Lister began, "why were you behaving so weird when you woke up today?" Rimmer sighed, on the list of subjects he didn't want to talk about today marked just above Glenn Miller, but at the same time he knew if he didn't answer Lister wouldn't shut up. "I don't know" he answered coming out as a high pitched squeak. Above him Lister growled, an unsaid threat to tell the truth. Rimmer sighed again and the continued. "When I woke up I didn't see the point of cowardice, or what my parents expected me to be anymore. Something inside of me broke. I'm hardly mister brave but I'm not what I was anymore. I want to have fun, I liked the rush of jumping- though I don't want to do it again."

Lister mulled over that answer and since Rimmer was in a talkative mood decided to push his luck. It could only go badly after all. "So mate, if you aren't listening to what your parents' wanted anymore _and _you wanna have more fun- how 'bout a drink and a curry down the Copacabana tomorrow night?" Rimmer, to his credit, at least pretended to think about it for a moment before speaking again. "Smeg off Listy! I said I wanted to have more fun now. At what point did I say I wanted to enter into a gastronomic suicide pact with you!" Lister recognised the exchange for what it was- a joke and replied in kind "Bastard. Anyway I'm sure playing Russian roulette in a room full of microwaves is more your speed." Lister knew full well Rimmer's problem with microwaves stemmed from electromagnetic interference and not cowardice, and that any hologram would be damaged by prolonged contact, but he still teased him about it. Life, without teasing Rimmer was not life at all but a rather boring ersatz version of an existence. Make do, and bland, with no redeeming features whatsoever. At least, at the end of the day he had his target back now. He couldn't imagine life without a good joke now and then.

With that exchange of colourful epithets, things in the bunkroom had returned to what passed for normal for the crew. And then, with one last half-hearted blow of his trunk, Jeremy the elephant left the room. Things had returned to the status quo, and it could never be said that an elephant stayed when he knew he was no longer needed.

* * *

**Cobbled together- or the story of how Kryten keeps working. **

Whilst Lister and Rimmer were chatting away, and cat was off claiming things as his, Kryten was heading down to his 'bedroom'. He could manage without changing his head- just about- but operating with a large part of his arm a mass of charred, misshapen plastisteel was another matter entirely. He only hoped that his heads would keep their hurtful remarks down to a level where he would be able to affect repairs to his system before having to retreat.

He opened the door, expecting a barrage of abuse, and was surprised when he was greeted by a pair of wails from Heads 1 and 2. His third spare head was napping on the end of the shelf, completely oblivious but that was no great loss. Head two recovered first "my god Kryten" it spoke "what happened to you". Unable to formulate an intelligible reply Kryten simply responded "an accident with a plasma cutter." The spare heads tutted in unison "really Kryten you should be more careful- otherwise we'll never get to be head head." Kryten knew he had to apologise over what he had said as a human, otherwise they would not remain civil for long. "I'm sorry about..." he was interrupted. "We know Kryten and we accept your apology- just don't speak of it again." Kryten sighed, relieved and plucked a few tools and a spare hand from his parts pile. He could respect that.

A couple of hours later and Kryten was nearly as good as new. Just his head to refit and he would be the epitome of perfectly serviced anally retentive free-thinking mechanoids everywhere. "Whose turn is it to be head head?" he asked. "I've got to swap over". A minute of deliberation between the two spares currently awake resulted in 2 being picked. Kryten unscrewed his head and placed it on the shelf before moving to pick up his new one. "Down a bit" the heads directed his hands, "bit more, now grip, and bring it up. That's it, now down, down. Screw it in. NO! IN don't knock it on the floor". Kryten got up to try and pick it up but felt only a dull clunk. "And now you've kicked it, very smart Kryten" the spare heads echoed.

**The weakest link (aka, how the chain will continue) **

The next morning the boys reconvened in the cargo bay to decide what to do with the Wildfire. Rimmer wanted it locked up and hidden away until they needed it, not wanting a reminder of his alter ego around. Lister thought it might be a laugh to programme it to a dimension where earth was still around and live there for a while. Kryten wanted to ask the computer on board what it wanted done, and Cat didn't care- he just wanted to raid the ship for the beauty and hair aids he was sure Ace must have had hidden somewhere.

They walked up to the ship, looking at the large hole in the side, already being filled in by the self-repair nanobots Wildfire obviously carried in case of damage. The docking ladder was still attached but the cockpit glass dome was locked, but they climbed anyway, unwilling to add insult to injury by entering though the gaping hole. At the top of the platform was a biometric scanner. "Try it man, Ace is, _was,_ your alternate." Lister urged Rimmer, who tentatively placed his palm on the scanner, surprised as the cockpit opened with a satisfying hiss.

"You're back" a distinctively feminine voice that belonged to the computer said. Rimmer giggled in his head- of course that oversexed moron would have a young female computer voice. "wait- you aren't him" it continued, surprised. "No I bloody well am not that smegging moron Ace" Rimmer sneered at the computer. "Neither was he, he was a replacement and not a very good one either" the Victoria sighed. "What the hell are you talking about?" all four occupants of the tiny cockpit chorused.

And then Victoria found herself telling the story herself, not for the first time. Usually she left it to the outgoing Ace, but sometimes, like now it couldn't be helped. "… and now I've got to find a replacement, a good one, not that they can get any worse. I don't suppose you'd be interested?" she asked Rimmer, who blanched and shook his head in a vehement no. "Oh well, it's not the first time I've had to recruit an Ace myself, instead of the dying Ace doing it for me- the chain hasn't been broken yet."

They stepped off letting the ship go, waving goodbye for no reason any of them could actually make out, as Holly reminded her to "pop in for a visit" and wished that she wasn't going to "leave him alone with these gimboids"

* * *

**Good riddance (not the time of your life) **

They gave the imposter what he deserved, a cremation in the ships engine rooms. Then they collected the ashes and put them in a standard issue ship's urn, to be scattered out of the garbage cannon- just what he deserved. They had toyed with the idea of taking the imposter's body to the ring of planets, but at the end of the day, he just didn't deserve it.

And then, with no fuss, no eulogy, no thrills, they shot him off into space, to the tune of a rumbling engine and "always look on the bright side of life".

* * *

**Vanity will someday kill this Cat (but not today) **

Life was pretty good for the Cat. He'd slept 5 times, he'd eaten six times and claimed a lot of things as his, not least of which was half of Ace's cosmetics. Furthermore, the monkeys had left him alone, and he'd even found time to get in a small cupboard for a little bit of alone "kitty time". Cat was the first to say he was not a simple guy in some ways, but he did have some simple pleasures. Sometimes. Like chasing and killing space weevils. Simple pleasure but it fulfilled some primal need in him. The instinct was especially satisfied, for some reason, whenever he left the mangled corpse outside Kryten's or the Monkeys' doors.

Now if he could only have it away with something, he'd be the happiest Cat the universe ever did see.

* * *

so the last chapters done- more stories to come.


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